OR Books, the publisher of “Going Rouge,” a book of critical essays about Sarah Palin, is rushing to produce what could be the first book on the disaster, “Deepwater Horizon: The Oil Disaster, Its Aftermath and Our Future,” by Peter Lehner, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, written with Bob Deans.

Colin Robinson and John Oakes of OR signed the authors in mid-June and gave them about a month to finish writing and reporting. Mr. Oakes said he expected to have a finished manuscript in his hands this week, with a September publication date planned.

“It seemed essential to get a book out,” Mr. Oakes said. “We’ll have the take on what’s happened and how we got to this point. A book that encapsulates, that does an overview of the issues, could be of utility to someone.”

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Jeff Bezos loves numbers. In a speech in May to graduates at his alma mater, Princeton University, he recounted a childhood memory: when, driving with his grandmother, a heavy smoker, he calculated by how many years her addiction would reduce her life expectancy. Announcing the result from the back seat, he expected praise for his deft math. But his grandmother just burst into tears.

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