I have three of the books you guys have been talking about --

Becoming Batman

The Batman Handbook

The Parkour and Free-running handbook

I found "Becoming Batman" a bit disappointing because the author focused heavily on the athlete angle and didn't seem to consider military/cop stuff that would have been relevant. Also *spoiler alert* he says basically that you could be Batman if you had a genetic predisposition toward that for about 10 years before the accumulated stresses on your body forced you to retire. The entire book is basically about proving that thesis statement, not necessarily guiding you toward "becoming Batman." And I disagree with that thesis statement because it presumes your adversaries would be on par with Batman's and that you'd fight them hand-to-hand on a regular basis -- I don't think that would be true even if you were a masked vigilante in Sadr City or Khandahar.

"The Batman Handbook" is basically humor, although like those Zombie survival guides, worst case scenario handbooks, etc, it's not completely full of lies or anything.

"The Parkour and Free-running handbook" has been eye-opening. I've been doing parkour on my own for about a month or so -- this book includes some things I totally never thought of, like the simple advice to try and do your parkour running silently. That never would have occurred to me.

I even spent time printing up "The RLSH manual" that is out here on the web by NiteOwl.... did he just give up on it or something? It hasnt been updated in months...