Add one more book about the (still unfolding!) financial crisis to your 2009 reading list. Times business reporter/wunderkind Andrew Ross Sorkin sent out a proposal on Tuesday, an auction took place yesterday, and now he's "inches away" from a deal with Viking. [NYO, previously]

Bankers' losses are going to be certain authors' gains: Book proposals about the Wall Street debacle have already landed on publishers' desks, reports Leon Neyfakh in the Observer. Times business columnist Joe Nocera (right) and former Fortune reporter Bethany McLean (left) are asking for offers in excess of $1 million for their "definitive chronicle" of the financial crisis, and Newsweek's Daniel Gross is pitching a "quickie electronic book" with a similar premise. Meanwhile, Publishers Marketplace reports that Melanie Jackson has sold Roger Lowenstein's Six Days That Shook the World, "a look at last week on Wall Street and in Washington, illuminating the origins of the crisis," to Ann Godoff at Penguin.

How to Have Style by Isaac Mizrahi, which will be published next month, uses case studies to scold women about the contents of their wardrobes and bossily tell them what they should be wearing—in other words, it's the gay raison d'etre distilled into book form. Even though all these kind of books are based on the lie that there's such a thing as timeless style, rather than completely ephemeral fashions, if anything will make the perfect underminey/passive aggressive holiday gift, this will. [NYDN]

Who would have predicted that Carrie Bradshaw would possess the resilience of a cockroach in a nuclear war? Nearly five years after the final episode of SATC, her teenage years are being dreamed up by Candace Bushnell, and last night Michael Patrick King announced there'd be a sequel to the movie. But as for Bushnell's new book One Fifth Avenue, now that the economy's collapsed, does its focus on wealthy uppercrusters and consumerism mean that people won't want to read it? Bushnell has thought of various ingenious reasons that they will!

Serena Williams—who was seen palling around Fashion Week with André Leon Talley, leading to whispers that a Vogue feature must be pending—has sold a memoir to Jamie Raab-led Grand Central Publishing for $1.3 million. Presumably its main advice to aspiring tennis stars will be: "Have your father plot your success before you've even been conceived." [Crains]

Serena Williams may have a book deal in hand by this time next week. William Morris's Suzanne Gluck is "close to reaching a $1 million deal for an inspirational memoir, according to industry sources." [Crain's]

Aspiring novelists, thinking of paying tens of thousands of dollars for a demanding MFA program and honing your craft in impoverished obscurity for years? Don't bother, just do like Lauren Conrad and display your dazzling intellect and facility for language by, like, staring blankly into space and squeezing out a tear when there's, like, so much drama between Lo and Audrina. And, bingo, a three book deal will be yours! [People]

Good news for those of you who have been worried about Tori Spelling's personal finances. (Not such good news for aspiring authors who still believe the "good stuff floats to the top.") Tori's creatively-titled 288-page memoir, sTORI Telling, will take over as No. 1 on the New York Times best-sellers list this Sunday. It's been on the list for 14 weeks, and is already in its 19th printing. [People]

Good news for chick lit fans, bad news for Western civilization: The Devil Wears Prada author has signed a new two book deal with her publisher Simon and Schuster. [Publishers Weekly]

You know what there's a real gap in the market for in the current economic climate? A book telling people how to give away their spare cash! So it's no surprise that Kate Lee, the canny ICM agent who rose to prominence by spotting the commercial potential of bloggers—like Elizabeth Spiers, Doree Shafrir, and Glenn Reynolds—has brokered 77-year-old Canadian billionaire Charles Bronfman's book deal. The brother of Edgar Sr. and uncle of Edgar Jr. will co-author a book titled The Art of Giving: Where the Soul Meets a Business Plan, billed on Publishers Marketplace (subscription required) as "a guide for individuals of all ages and incomes on how to determine their emotional and financial relationships with philanthropy." Who knows, maybe by the time it comes out in December '09, some potential readers will have enough money to need help with which charities to donate to.

Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down, published by a company with one employee and the only book that explores the life of the Alaska governor, took off over the weekend: it hit the top ten on Friday evening before slipping to 20 yesterday. As of this morning? It's at No. 46. [Galleycat]

Prospects for ghost writers have suddenly improved as publishers scramble to sign up Olympic champions to write books about, presumably, focusing on your dreams and never giving up, no matter what. Michael Phelps' eight gold medals were topped off by a $1.6 million deal from Simon & Schuster for Built to Succeed, in which he'll "reveal the secrets of his success." Let's hope he can write as fast as he swims: according to the Post, the book is due on shelves in December. Meanwhile 18-year-old Russian gymnastics champion Anastasia "Nastia" Liukin (left) is in talks to write two books including, natch, an "inspirational memoir," for which she can draw on the journals she's sensibly been keeping in preparation for this very day.

The Metropolitan Museum wasn't especially pleased when it was revealed to be the subject of Michael Gross's latest juicy tome, Rogues Gallery: The Secret History of The Moguls and the Money That Made the Metropolitan Gallery. A dispute over cover photo rights was settled several months ago; now GalleyCat reports that the book, which promises to unveil "the secrets behind the upper class's cultural and philanthropic ambitions," is scheduled for an April release. [GalleyCat]

John McCain has apparently taken careful note of the fact that no sooner had the news of Joe Biden joining the Democratic ticket emerged, his 2007 memoir Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics jumped straight onto the bestseller lists. McCain now seems to be taking advantage of his media interviews to market his own backlist, which consists of such magnum opi as Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir and Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life. In an interview with Time, the fiesty politico vehemently insisted that the reporters read his books for the answers to their questions. What, just because he's in the running for president, he should put all his eggs in one basket?

Brooklyn literati kingpin Paul Auster does not care for computers. "I just don't trust the internet. Most of what's on it is false." And how did he come to this startling conclusion? "I'll give readings where the person introducing me will provide information that is simply wrong. I'll ask them where they got it, and invariably they’ll say the internet.'" [Times UK]

Yes, there's a clutch of new TV shows about fashion and models, but supposing you're a more cerebral type who prefers to get your fix of backstage catfights, diva-ish designers and general industry sleaze from reading? Eighties supermodel Carol Alt would love you to pick up a copy of her autobiographical novel, This Year's Model, which follows the adventures of a wholesome young woman from New Jersey as she navigates the treacherous waters of modeling while keeping her "dignity intact," only briefly slipping off the straight and narrow by accidentially ingesting some hash brownies.

A book about Salman Rushdie co-written by one of his former bodyguards contained "falsehoods," the authors have admitted, and will be amended accordingly. Rushdie threatened legal action after published excerpts of On Her Majesty's Service characterized him as "mean and arrogant," but the enemy-of-ayatollahs novelist hasn't, his lawyer makes clear, asked for any "opinion" in the book to be altered. That, obviously, would be too ironic. [Guardian]

Have you been looking for a reading experience that lives up to last year's socialite masterpiece, Holly Peterson's The Manny? Then you'll be thrilled to hear about NYTimes Styles contributor and occasional mommy blogger Tatiana Boncompagni's forthcoming roman à clef, Gilding Lily, which follows (overt Wharton reference alert!) Lily Bartholomew's struggles in the cut-throat world of New York high society. Just like Tatiana, Lily is a rich wife who dabbles in lifestyle journalism; she also has a mean mother-in-law! Sounds groundbreaking and Plum Sykes has blurbed it, so it must be good. [JC Report]

It's official: As far as romans-a-clef are concerned, uptown private school brats are the new thinly-veiled famous boss. Following beleaguered-tutor-lit like Andrew Trees' Academy X and Eliot Shrefer's Glamorous Disasters, the latest is Anisha Lakhani's Schooled, a novel based on her experiences as a teacher at Dalton and an expensive private tutor to spoiled kids. But while Lakhani's publisher Hyperion is to be commended for complying with the trend and telling us what we want to hear about young 10021ers—that they're impossibly decadent, fucked-up, and lazy—don't think a commercial novel by a woman can go without the most vital ingredient of all: shoes! You see, Lakhani's narrative alter-ego loses her morals and ghostwrites homework because she has "a pricey shoe habit." Did you hear that, chick-lit fans? You can buy this novel in complete confidence that its heroine loves shoes.

New York Times columnist Philip Galanes has a new novel out, Emma's Table, and it features a character based on Martha Stewart, "fresh from a year-long stretch in prison and the public bloodletting that accompanied her fall," who ends up finding redemption with the help of an antique dining table. Considering he's both a lawyer and an etiquette expert, Galanes should be well-equipped to deal with any potential reaction from Stewart. [Reuters]