Yesterday, Jeff Meyerson, a frequent commeter here, sent me a link to a review of a new movie called 7 Minutes. I was reminded of Irving Wallace's The Seven Minutes, a novel that has no connection to the movie, and looked up the novel on the 'net. That's how I came across this fascinating story.
The Dirty Secret of a Legendary Rare Book
4 comments:
Glad to be of service. Ah yes, Irving Wallace. I remember him well. I didn't read THE SEVEN MINUTES but I did read THE MAN and THE PRIZE, both of which were made into movies, I believe.
Jeff
Oh, does this take me back! When I was 14/15 (1971/2), I used to babysit for a couple who apparently had quite progressive ideas--for instance, they were the first people I knew who had coffee-flavored ice cream. They also had a lot of books, including things like The Joy of Sex, The Sensuous Woman, and a bunch of "arty" Swedish erotica--right there on the shelves alongside Reader's Digest Condensed novels and Book-of- the-Month Club selections. Naturally, when I babysat, I would rummage through the "dirty" books while consuming mass quantities of coffee ice cream! Anyway, one of the books was The Seven Minutes, which I actually found quite engrossing (and, sometime later, realized was highly inaccurate!). After that, I went on a little Irving Wallace binge--unfortunately, when I went to the library, I got him mixed up with Irving Stone and ended up reading The Agony and The Ecstasy and Passions of the Mind before I realized my mistake.
I read THE SEVEN MINUTES and THE PRIZE, as I recall. I think I did an Overlooked Movies post on the film version of THE PRIZE. Somehow I missed out on Irving Stone.
I read THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY (along with Eleanor Clark's ROME AND A VILLA and H. V. Morton's THE FOUNTAINS OF ROME) before our first trip to Italy in 1974.
Deb, my "discovery" while babysitting was LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER!
Jeff
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