Wiseguy

Product Information

Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family is a 1985 non-fiction book by crime reporter Nicholas Pileggi that chronicles the life of Henry Hill, a Mafia associate turned informant. The book is the basis for the 1990 Academy Award–winning film Goodfellas directed by Martin Scorsese. [1] [2] [3] Summary [ edit ] Lccn 85022047 Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Openlibrary OL7660706M Openlibrary_edition

Whilst reading it, it is soon very obvious why Martin Scorsese was so attracted to this story, indeed I can almost imagine his excitement, as he works out how to structure key scenes and who to cast. The book was interesting and very informative. I found it very helpful and saw a lot of areas that I could learn from other guys in. Wiseguy even has some advantages over its still-more-brilliant offspring. A two-and-a-half- hour biopic must necessarily simplify and omit events. In Henry Hill's case, a lot of those events are interesting. Alongside Wise Guys, Robert De Niro has several other intriguing projects currently in the pipeline. The actor will next reunite with both director Martin Scorsese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio for the Western crime epic, Killers of the Flower Moon. Based on the non-fiction book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon will explore the real-life murders which took place in the Osage Nation in the 1920s after oil was discovered on tribal land. The incident sparked a major FBI investigation directed by a 29-year-old J. Edgar Hoover and former Texas Ranger Tom White.Kent has provided sixteen personal stories in this book about men that have influenced his life. They involve men whom God placed in Kent's life, often at crucial junctures when he was ready to listen. The goal of this book is for the reader to consider people in their own lives whom they could approach for help when they need it based on Kent's personal experiences. The "wise guys" in this book are unique to the author, but there are men like them in each of our lives. He exposes points in his life for all to see, whether they be proud or good hearted or shameful or painful moments. If you’re like most men,” writes Evans, “when you think of who you are, you don’t have a person in mind; you have a role. If we are to harvest lessons from other men, we must become situational observers.” There are a lot of books out there for women, and the Christian book market seems to aimed at women. This book though is just for men. Women could read it, but there really isn't much for women in it. Sorry ladies. :) So I would actually be more likely to recommend this to someone who’s never seen Goodfellas, who can appreciate the sheer outlandishness of this memoir. Henry Hill, in collaboration with Nicholas Pileggi, wrote this book after he’d been placed in witness protection after ratting out the other members of his New York mafia family – so at that point, he’d already burned all his bridges and had nobody left to protect and nothing much left to lose. This means that he shares everything in this memoir, detailing the murders, the robberies, the drugs, the affairs, the betrayals…it’s all here, and it’s all just on the safe side of completely unbelievable.

What amazed me most is how closely the movie aligns with the book, because let’s be honest people, Hollywood screenwriters have butchered many a book. A lot of Ray Liotta’s, um, I mean Henry Hill’s classic one liners and pithy monologues are straight from the book. Much of the praise for the movie belongs to Pileggi; like the film, Wiseguy is entertaining from start to finish. It’s nonstop. A thriller and absolute banger right to the very end. Oh how I loved it. FIVE STARS! The Boston College point shaving scheme, for example. It's barely alluded to in Goodfellas (just once, by a low level con man named Morris, right before Tommy, Joe Pesci's famously terrifying character, drives a shiv repeatedly into his brain stem). Wiseguy, with more room to roam, delves into the nitty gritty. If, like me, you're fascinated by such details, then the book is an indispensable companion of the film. Kent interjects wit and humor throughout the book to keep the mood light and provide an entertaining read. This is not necessarily a book for group study, although it could be adapted for that pretty easily. I see it more as a personal study where you put yourself in the author's personal stories. Each chapter begins with a personal story and ends with a section titled "lessons learned" that describes key points or lessons to be learned from each situation. The last chapter gives you "three steps you can take right now" and "eleven tips to help you be a wise guy hunter". The premature death of mentoring is the lament of Kent Evans’ first book, Wise Guys. The author states, “We are individualistic to a fault. We esteem the self-made man . . . No one tells us what to do, especially not a king or queen. Our nation has enjoyed tremendous financial blessings – and a dose of the prideful spirit those blessings often bring.”Returning to the genre that made him a household name, Robert De Niro will star in Wise Guys, a feature intended for theatrical distribution that will be directed by Barry Levinson, the filmmaker known for movies such as Oscar best picture winner Rain Man and Wag the Dog. The purpose of this book is not to help the reader understand the author’s intention or life story. Neither is it to gather something “to learn” from the title. Rather, the purpose is singular: to re-instill in the male reader the need to journey through life with other men and to seek counsel from other men. The need to learn how to learn from other men. The realization that not having a father figure in one’s youth does not remove a father figure in one’s adulthood. The acceptance that not having a dad does not mean not having a father, because there are other men that can help fill that need. These goals, these purposes, are of great benefit to the male reader, and this book is best for any male that struggled with having a father figure or need to learn how to be one themselves. I bet that counts most of us in. The author writes convincingly and in an easy prose to read along, so what’s the harm in spending one’s afternoon seeing what the full book as to say? This is not to suggest that ' Wiseguy' (aka ' GoodFellas') is anything other than a good book, it’s just that the film is a masterpiece, and so much more than just this book brought to life on the screen.

Part of me wishes that I had read this book, which directly inspired Goodfellas, without having seen or even having any knowledge of the movie. There’s so much about Goodfellas that seems outrageous and over-the-top and made up, so it was almost weird to learn that Henry Hill was a real person, and that everything he describes in his memoir actually happened. Having seen the movie created this weird mental disconnect where even though I knew I was reading a memoir, it still felt kind of like a novel. (It also doesn’t help that the narration in Goodfellas is practically lifted word-for-word from the text of Hill’s memoir, to the point where I hope he got a screenwriter’s credit for the movie) Goodfellas ( originally titled Wiseguy) is a terrific true crime book that just stops short of romanticizing the life of a gangster. The book is about working class Italian and Irish gangsters in Brooklyn, starting from their early days in the 1950s to their fall in the 70s and 80s, told through the eyes of a foot soldier - Henry Hill and his wife Karen.urn:lcp:wiseguy00nich_aso:epub:1228e7a8-2712-43a3-bf07-6eadd713a8d9 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier wiseguy00nich_aso Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t1kh2tv9r Invoice 11 Isbn 0671447343 Wise Guys takes an honest and clever look at the current state of manhood/fatherhood. The book is laid out in easy to digest chapters, a conversational style, and questions to provoke personal growth. When an author starts out in the introduction by relating his theme to The Princess Bride, you know it’s going to be an enjoyable book, even if it does step on your toes a bit.