Julie Chen, co-anchor of the CBS Early Show and the wife of CBS honcho Les Moonves turns 40 today. Henry Kravis, the billionaire financier and co-founder of the private equity giant KKR, is turning 66. Film director John Singleton is 42. British food writer/TV personality Nigella Lawson is 50. Novelist E.L. Doctorow turns 79. Trudie Styler, Sting's wife, is turning 56. Former volleyball great Gabrielle Reece is 40. Rowan Atkinson (aka "Mr. Bean") turns 55. Actress Joey Lauren Adams turns 42. George Ross, Donald Trump's sidekick on The Apprentice, is 82. And reality star Tiffany Pollard, best known as "New York" to regular VH1 viewers, is turning 28 today.

• Former president George W. Bush has signed a deal with Crown to publish a memoir. Rumor has it he landed a $7 million advance for the book. [AP, NYP]
• For his part, Barack Obama has two books in the works with Crown. He plans to release an abridged, youth-oriented version of Dreams From My Father as well as write a nonfiction book once he leaves office. [CBS News]
• CNBC's keeping it classy. Larry Kudlow set a dollar bill on fire today. [CJR]
• Jim Cramer is still rattling on about Jon Stewart. [Gawker]
• NBC is planning to launch a "singing competition series" that sounds a lot like—yes, you guessed it—Fox's American Idol. [THR]
• CBS is keeping Two and a Half Men on the air through 2012. [NYT]
• The finalists for the Man Booker International Prize include E. L. Doctorow, V. S. Naipaul, Joyce Carol Oates, Mario Vargas Llosa and Alice Munro. [NYT]
• The noms for the National Magazine Awards are out. [AdAge]
• The cable channel Starz would like to remind you that it exists. [NYT]
• How screwed is the newspaper biz? Here's a pic that sums it up nicely. [BI]

Legendary financier Henry Kravis turns 65 today. This means he can now begin collecting full social security benefits, which he may very well need at the rate he's going. Also celebrating: Julie Chen, the Early Show co-anchor and wife of CBS chief Les Moonves, is 39. Director John Singleton is turning 41. British food critic/TV host Nigella Lawson is 49. Novelist E.L. Doctorow is 78. Trudie Styler, the wife of Sting, is 55. Actress Joey Lauren Adams is turning 41. And volleyball star-turned-model Gabrielle Reece is 39.

♦ The opening of Elizabeth Peyton's New Museum exhibition on Tuesday was full of her friends and fans like Marc Jacobs (with boyfriend Lorenzo Martone, left), Glenn O'Brien, Amy Astley, Peter Brant and Stephanie Seymour, Hope Atherton, Cecily Brown, Rachel Feinstein and John Currin, Alex Katz, Kiki Smith, Gavin Brown, Barbara Gladstone, Debbie Harry, and Thelma Golden. [The Daily, PMc]

Doctorow is a celebrated bestselling author of American historical fiction, a professor at NYU, and a stalwart lefty.