Book Review

Title: The Indiana Jones Handbook: The Complete Adventurer’s Guide       

Author: Denise Kiernan and Joseph D’Agnese

Publisher: Quirk Books

Pages: 176

Released: March 15^th 2008

ISBN: 978-1-59474-221-7

Reviewed By: Kindah Mardam Bey (Ontario Correspondent – Canada)

If you ever wanted to live the bold adventures of Indiana Jones, it might be nice to have an instructions manual to take along with you. Such niblets of critical information “How To Identify Secret Passageways and Booby Traps” or “How To Break Free If You Are Tied Up” are pearls of wisdom to budding archaeologists convinced that Indie’s life is the status quo for the profession.  

The Indiana Jones Handbook: The Complete Adventurer’s Guide is a great campy, tongue-in-cheek throwback to the ‘80s when the film merchandising quadrant was at its pinnacle. You were buying Happy Meals for the toys from blockbuster films, and collecting character figurines, and flamboyant books such as this one let teenage high school kids feel as cool as Indiana Jones as they learned how to “Use Your Bullwhip” or “How To Out-Drive The Enemy.” Books like these made the Goonies feel like they could be pirate’s even before they accomplished the task of puberty.

Of course, The Indiana Jones Handbook serves a playful purpose to the fourth films cinematic release. Kids will enjoy that “Goonies feeling” I mentioned, but I think the now parents who grew up being those ‘80s kids will also feel the delight of revisiting a certain place and time.

The Indiana Jones Handbook: The Complete Adventurer’s Guide is for anyone still young at heart who believes in

adventure...