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Was this co-written with Michael Herskowitz or with Karen Hughes? 217.42.13.36 ( talk) 23:01, 5 December 2007 (UTC) reply

Worth mentioning somehow: http://harpers.org/archive/2008/01/hbc-90002237 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.210.97.129 ( talk) 16:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC) reply

We can all speculate who did what, but the credited author of this book, as far as I can see, is George W. Bush. I followed the WP ISBN  0688174418 link, and then checked Google books and all the listed catalogs from there, and they all listed the author as "George W. Bush", period.

(With one exception: Internet Book Database lists the author as Karen Hughes!)

I did find one source that said the actual story was: Bush hired Herskowitz to write it, wasn't happy with the results, and then had Karen Hughes rewrite it to fit his vision (from whence how the Internet Book Database credits it, perhaps...). But that's a lot different from "credited ghostwriter", unless someone has a source confirming that in contradiction to the cover and major catalogs.

The only place I see where Herskowitz is mentioned at all as an author is on the UK Amazon site, which I don't think is a canonical source.

...oh, wait, speaking of canonical sources, how about the publisher? Turns out the Morrow credit is to Bush and Hughes. But the Hughes credit might be for her foreword?-- NapoliRoma ( talk) 23:41, 11 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks for your research! But it doesn't necessarily contradict the statement in the current version of the article ("written by George W. Bush and credited ghostwriter Michael Herskowitz, with a foreword by Karen Hughes"). A fully credited ghostwriter would not be a ghostwriter but a coauthor. However, there are other possibilites to acknowledge a ghostwriter's contributions. See e.g. Ghostwriter#Remuneration_and_credit:

Sometimes the ghostwriter will receive partial credit on a book, signified by the phrase "with..." or "as told to..." on the cover. Credit for the ghostwriter may also be provided as a "thanks" in a foreword or introduction. For nonfiction books, the ghostwriter may be credited as a "contributor" or a "research assistant".

Such a credit in the introduction would not need to appear in catalog entries or publisher's advertising texts. Still, it would be preferable to know in which form Herskowitz' writing is acknowledged in the book (I don't have access to a copy right now).

Regards, HaeB ( talk) 00:28, 12 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Totally get that -- I just haven't seen any citation of any kind for why Herskowitz is being called the credited ghostwriter -- and I've seen one source, as I mentioned above, that in fact says he was booted, and that Hughes should get the ghostwriter credit.-- NapoliRoma ( talk) 01:10, 12 January 2011 (UTC) reply

The fact that Herskowitz wrote much of the text, but was "booted", is already mentioned in this Wikipedia article, citing the same source as that book does (namely [1]).

Actually, if no one can explain the precise origin of "credited" (e.g. by providing a citation with a page number), I don't mind removing it for the time being; I just wanted to point out that it is still entirely possible that it is correct.

Regards, HaeB ( talk) 01:45, 12 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Argh, missed that was already in the article; that was dumb, sorry.-- NapoliRoma ( talk) 03:32, 12 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Oh, according to the preview on Amazon (Buy it new for $5.60!), Herskowitz is not in the index, but Hughes is -- including a ref to a roman-numeraled page for her. So it would seem he is not mentioned in the foreword or acknowledgements.-- NapoliRoma ( talk) 01:17, 12 January 2011 (UTC) reply

I felt this was worth bringing up somewhere other than the edit log:

A few years ago I added a sourced story to this article. The source was, not to put too fine a point on it, wrong.

The claim in the source was that the Koerner painting from which the title of this book was derived was originally used as an illustration for a story called "The Slipper Tongue", published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1916, captioned "Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught."

A look at that issue of the magazine shows that the picture with that caption was indeed by Koerner, and had some casual similarities (there was a guy, and there were horses :-) but was not at all the same painting.-- NapoliRoma ( talk) 16:44, 1 June 2012 (UTC) reply