cover image The Action Heroine's Handbook: How to Win a Catfight, Drink Someone Under the Table, Choke a Man with Your Bare Thighs, and Dozens of Other TV and Mo

The Action Heroine's Handbook: How to Win a Catfight, Drink Someone Under the Table, Choke a Man with Your Bare Thighs, and Dozens of Other TV and Mo

Joe Borgenicht, Jennifer Worick, Borgenicht &. Worick. Quirk Books, $14.95 (192pp) ISBN 978-1-931686-68-6

Worick (The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating and Sex) and Borgenicht (The Action Hero's Handbook) offer girl-power advice for Charlie's Angels wannabes that ranges from the eccentric (the tips on""how to survive as a mob wife"" include""do not ask your husband too many questions"" and""become familiar with state and federal law"") to the efficient (""how to give birth under pressure,"" where readers learn to have two towels on hand and to breathe slowly). Although seemingly far-fetched, the how-tos are actually backed up with legitimate advice from professionals, so a stuntwoman explains how to win a catfight (""put your hair up and out of the way to avoid a vicious hair-pulling""), a zoologist describes how to protect your child from a ferocious beast (""draw the beast's attention to you"") and a speech and language pathologist offers advice on eavesdropping from a distance (determining the topic of conversation beforehand helps). Line drawings spruce up this alternately goofy and serious book.