Book Review: 'How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication'

Read this book, and you’ll never make embarrassing party/conference/meeting- the-in-laws faux pas again! Read it and forget all the stuff those deconstructionists tried to push on you about how impossible it is to really communicate! Read it and bridge the generation and gender gaps! Read it and get your own talk show! (Well … ) There’s no doubt that Larry King can talk, and there’s no doubt he can get his guests to talk, but the inherent assumption of this book — that he can get everyone else to talk — requires a certain suspension of disbelief. After all, practicing in the mirror and doing it in real life are very different things. For the truly talkophobic it’s probable that every little hint helps, and there are some worthwhile, if recycled, suggestions (look the person you’re talking to in the eye, for one — a seemingly obvious, but often-ignored, dictum). Still, faced with someone who turns to you at a party and says, ”I don’t strike up a conversation very well with a woman (or man) I’ve just met. But I’d enjoy talking to you for a few minutes,” what would you think? Probably not Yippee! C