Book Review: Talking To Strangers
By: Nicole Carmichael Published: Sun, August 4, 2013
Unless you are an insurance salesman yourself, or insurance is generally your bag, this book may not be your first choice of reading matter this summer but it is actually very entertaining.
Every day, Peter Rosengard, who calls himself a “Scottish Jew, a Hebrew Highlander” starts his day with breakfast at Claridges, sometimes followed by one or two more.
One year he ate 859 breakfasts there but, amazingly, this was not what earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Records.
In July 1990 he sold the world’s largest life insurance policy for $100million to the head of MCA records.
He was not remotely connected to the bigwigs in the music business at the time, he just had the guts to pull off the deal.
It is this ambitious grit, determination and nerve that has fuelled his incredible career and resulted in this colourful autobiography.
In July 1990 he sold the world’s largest life insurance policy for $100million to the head of MCA records.
Rather than plodding through the predictable rites of passage chapters, this anecdotal memoir offers up such treats as How to get to Stockholm in a Rolls on a Fiver, How to Open the World’s Most Successful Comedy Club (London’s Comedy Store, in 1979) and How to Give Prince Charles a Lavatory For His Birthday.
You couldn’t make it up and this larger-than-life former encyclopaedia salesman drops more names than Who’s Who.
He discovered Eighties chart-toppers Curiosity Killed the Cat, comedian Alexei Sayle, rubbed shoulders with Henry Kissinger and Steven Spielberg and once confronted Gordon Ramsay about his scrambled eggs.
If you are into life insurance you may actually be disappointed that there is not more about the subject. However, if you fancy a touching, whimsical read, this will not disappoint.
VERDICT: 4/5