Ghost Train To The Eastern Star On The

A ghostwriter is specified as a writer who gives the credit of authorship to somebody else (Princeton). Why do we live in a world where the gifted and the originative trade their work without attribution, and celebrities trade themselves as “authors” when in fact they have merely purchased the hard labor of another and taken full credit for it.

Merriam-Webster defines an “author” as the writer of a book, article, or other text. I don’t get it! The definition of an author is very clear…an author is the WRITER of a book (except when they aren’t but pretend to be). How do celebrities like politicians, movie stars, and sports athletes get away with pretending to author a body of text without actually penning it? Why don’t we hold them accountable for pretending to be author’s when in reality they distinctly are not. Patterson writes less and less of his novels, with more complaints in regards to quality and consistency while only at times giving credit to his co-authors.

Is an author actually an author if they don’t in truth write their own book? Think Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, etc. Do we actually believe that they write their own books? Of course not… In fact, most books by famous personalities are written partially if not entirely by Ghostwriters. For example:

* Billy Graham – “The Approaching Hoofbeats” written by Mel White

* Pat Robertson -”America’s Dates With Destiny” written by Mel White

* Lee Iacocca, “Iacocca” written by William Novak

* Even Bill Gates book, “Road Ahead” had two collaborators

So, how may someone like Sarah Palin put her name on a book and call herself the “author” when she didn’t write it? Her book even says “Copyright 2009 by Sarah Palin.” To their credit, ghostwriters are often legally bound not to disclose that they’ve ghosted sure books, but does that make it right? Now Sarah Palin has a new book coming out, America by Heart – who do you think wrote that one? Probably not her. But may you blame these celebrities for wanting to be recognized as bestselling authors?

We ask for transparency in our feed products, with a label that distinctly details what ingredients are present, and where the feed comes from – worthful data for a buyer. Don’t readers want to recognise who in truth writes the books they are reading? Maybe not; perchance we as readers don’t genuinely care. Maybe it is similar to our fascination with sports personalities – they may do no wrong. We prefer to be enamored with our celebrities, as if they were more than they actually are.

George Bush Holds His Breath

George Bush Holds His Breath

Let’s relate this to something more tangible perchance – giving birth through a surrogate. Maybe you are unable or even perhaps unwilling to give birth to your own child. So you hire a surrogate, compensate them X thousands of dollars and they do the work – morning sickness, stretch marks, insatiable appetite for extraneous feed items (think grapefruit, chocolate, or chicken perhaps), and sacrifice of numerous creature comforts. After birth they hand the baby to you, disregarding the level of remorse, and that baby is now transposed to their new and lawful mother for the rest of time. So what’s the difference? Well, for one thing, a child is a living, breathing organism, a humane being. A book is sold for net profit or purpose. Being an author without doubt or question connotates having actually written a book. In my example, you might be the most fantastic mother in the world, and will be for a limitless time be the mother of that child. However, no matter what happens, you will never be competent to assert that you gave birth to that child, for that credit is due elsewhere.

In the end, we are to blame. We are many times so obsessed with our celebrities that we are more than willing to turn a blind eye, overlooking the fact that they didn’t even bother to write their own book – yes, the one they assert to be the author of. Maybe it doesn’t matter, as long as the reading is good and it has the selective information they want.

Old Fashioned Typewriter

Old Fashioned Typewriter

To be clear – you can not be an author of a book without having written the book, just as you can not be a “surgeon” without having performed surgery. Can you be a bus driver without driving a bus? Can you airline pilot without flying an airplane? Can you be a chef without stepping foot in the kitchen and actually cooking? I don’t think so. Can you imagine preparing your resume for a high-paying occupation when all of your work experience was genuinely outsourced to an individual else? Yes, that’s called plagiarism -paying somebody to do your work for you and putting your name on it as if you wrote it yourself.

And the uttermost question; may you in truth be a humane if you refuse to live? We cannot outsource our life…or may we? We outsource so a great deal of things – even University professors are outsourcing the grading of student papers to other countries:

The Chronicle of Higher Education in April reported on the University of Houston business school’s contract to have student papers uploaded to “teaching assistants” (mostly residing in India, Singapore, and Malaysia), who read them, mark them up, and offer constructive advice. UH professor Lori Whisenant, who initiated the university’s contract with the firm EduMetry, said she is in general pleased with the results. [Chronicle of Higher Education, 4-4-10]

Well, of course we may outsource respective distinct elements of our life, but we will have to look ourselves in the mirror when we get up in the morning, and when we go to bed, with conscious acceptance of our level of integrity. We need to give credit where credit is rightfully due. Yes, business is business as my friend Mark reminds me, but integrity and our soul are so much more. In the end, you can not blame the ghostwriters as they are just doing the occupation they are remunerated for. We may only blame ourselves by buying books written by those we admire even when we recognise they are pretending to be something they are not – authors.

Ghost Train To The Eastern Star On The

ReviewAmazon Best of the Month, August 2008: Way back in the dark pre-Internet, limited-air-travel world of 1975, the way to get from Europe to Asia was by train. A young and ambitious writer named Paul Theroux made his literary mark by taking the 28,000-mile intercontinental journeying by way of rail from London to Tokyo and back home again. His book, The Great Railway Bazaar, became a travel-lit classic. Thirty years later, an older, wiser, and even less sanguine Theroux decisive to retrace his steps. The result is Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, a arousing and attention holding account of the places you vaguely knew existed (Tbilisi), probably won’t ever go to (Bangalore), but unquestionably ought to recognise something in regards to (Mandalay). Get on board Theroux’s fast-moving travelogue, which features galore of the most astute commentary on our distorted notions of time, space, and each other in the age of jet speed, broadband connections, and cultural extinction. –Lauren Nemroff

From Bookmarks MagazinePaul Theroux has polarized critics with his latest travelogue. His sense of adventure, candid descriptions, and evocative prose notwithstanding, a good deal of critics took issue with the unbridled narcissism suffusing the narrative. Others lavished praise on the best-selling author, and the Los Angeles Times, summarizing the two sides neatly, called Theroux “a compelling writer who is basically unlikable.” Despite this sentiment and complaints of unimaginative generalizations and a tendency towards repetition, Theroux immerses readers in the alleys and shadowy corners of squalid cities that a heap of are improbable to see for themselves. He is a close observer of the unfamiliar and the strange while charting the simultaneous evolution and degeneration of the world itself. “Theroux’s real work is not with regards to travel,” reveals the Rocky Mountain News, “it’s with regards to the progression of the soul.”
Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC

From Booklist*Starred Review* Realizing that galore travel writers never retrace their steps, Theroux decides to travel as he did in his landmark book The Great Railway Bazaar (1975): east, throughout Europe and Asia, by train. Taking detours due to political unrest—Iran refuses a visa, and Afghanistan seems risky—he still manages a reasonable approximation: Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, and, finally, back throughout Russia, on the Trans-Siberian Express. Some places are hardly recognizable, while others seem not to have changed at all. (In the former USSR, he sees scenes that look authentic to czarist times.) As thoughtful and observant as ever—his unerring skill as an interviewer in spite of the somewhat difficult personality he presents to readers remains a arousing and attention holding paradox—this trip finds Theroux reflecting not only on changes to the landscape but likewise to himself. And where in Dark Star Safari (2003), Theroux seemed out of sorts, disturb with tourists and help workers alike, here, headed east through a West-looking world, he’s in heaven despite—or because of—the lack of creature comforts. A fantasti book infused with the perceptivenesses of maturity, this succeeds on galore levels while also doing what the best travel writing can’t help but do: make the reader want to hit the road. Moreover, it’s a reminder that in this age of progressively homogenous urban centers and easy air travel, those who genuinely want to tell apart national divergences ought to stay on the ground. –Keir Graff

Most helpful customer reviews

149 of 156 people found the following review helpful.
Classic Theroux – This Time Revealing More of the Man Himself
By Michael H. Frederick
I assume everyone reading this is familiar with Theroux’s latest premise, to retrace the trail he took over thirty years ago when he wrote “The Great Railway Bazaar.”

51 of 53 people found the following review helpful.
a sequel worth waiting for
By Richard Cumming
Paul Theroux published his classic travel book the Great Railway Bazaar in 1975. He had traveled by train across Europe and Asia in 1973. That book gave notice that Theroux was a literary force. The success of that book made Theroux the comfortable writer that we have known ever since.

This new book re-traces that epic adventure. Theroux is older, wiser, more affluent but still like a small boy in many ways. His observations regarding what is different now and what has stayed the same are thorough and entertaining. His interactions with the people he meets along the way are little treasures.

As Theroux passes from place to place we get a sense of the world that informs us at the deepest level. The devastation the tsunami brought to Sri Lanka becomes real to us. Cambodia is truly a country of ghosts.Vietnam is vibrant and youthful. Laos is primitive. Singapore a repressive zombie state. The country formerly known as Burma is simply repressive but Theroux is delighted to meet people there who remember him from his first time through.

He tracks down his peers, writers like Orhan Pamuk in Turkey, Arthur C. Clarke in Sri Lanka, Haruki Murakami and Pico Iyer in Japan. And he sees people reading his books. He watches with voyeuristic delight as a fellow passenger peruses “The Mosquito Coast.” He can’t resist informing this young female backpacker that I WROTE THAT.

An amazing adventure – Theroux is at the top of his game here. He devotes only a half page to China. This omission is by design. Theroux doesn’t conceal his feelings or his opinions.

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