With a mixture of self-deprecating humor and personal stories, Evans leads the reader through the life lessons he has learned from 16 diverse men. The author attributes much of the decline in mentoring to the rapid growth of fatherless homes and absentee dads over the last 50 years. 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.” The book is based on the real life story of a mobster Henry Hill. He used to be a member of Lucchese crime family. A deeper look into a Mafia World And it's something different to know about the Mafia from someone inside the under world. The experience was totally different from reading a Mafia Fiction (i.e. The Godfather, The Sicilian, Omerta etc). When I read The Godfather, I don't know from where it came, but a strange sympathy worked for the Mafia. But when I read this book, I came across to know about Mafia (the real Mafia) that it's totally different from what I read in those fictions. It's not so sympathetic and it's quite brutal and blood thursty. The money and self-interest is everything in this world. In this sense, I will give all the credit to Henry Hill. He was so honest about his detail description. urn:oclc:873216236 Republisher_date 20131030175837 Republisher_operator [email protected] Scandate 20131029213835 Scanner scribe3.sanfrancisco.archive.org Scanningcenter sanfrancisco Source The project is centered on Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, two Italian-American crime bosses that ran their respective families in the middle of the 20th century. In 1957, Genovese attempted to assassinate Costello but failed, although he was wounded and decided to retire, as much as one can retire from the Mafia.

By the way the legendary “Am I some kind of clown, do I amuse you…” scene is not in the book and, apparently, was improvised by Joe Pesci who had seen a real mobster do something similar. So, if like me, you’ve seen the film multiple times, is it worth reading the book? Probably not. It’s good but the overwhelming sense of familiarity makes it all feel very recognisable. That said, if you really love the film then you will inevitably still get quite a lot out of reading the book including quite a lot of interesting detail about what the authorities did leading up to Henry Hill's arrest, and the aftermath of his entry into the Federal Witness Program. Warners’ first original feature of the Warner Bros. Discovery era is here … and it’s a period mobster drama fronted by two Hollywood veterans. And when you finally get to the end, and see how Hill escapes a bullet in the head (that was issued to everyone else who knew of the Lufthansa heist) to become a Federal employee, you wonder... is this all okay and correct that this should happen? People are killed en route to this, millions of dollars of property and cash are redistributed among wiseguys, and yet the prime mover becomes another man in lieu of the one he never was. I am not sure. 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.I waited for this book for a long time. Watched my favorite movie "Goodfellas" based on this book several times. So when I got the hard copy of the book, I could not resist myself finishing it at once. It is As good as the movie. But if someone watches the movie, the book is waste of time in my opinion. The movie is a total honest representation of the book. But my case is different. I love to read about Mafia. :) Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2012-12-12 17:36:29 Boxid IA120121212-IA1 Boxid_2 CH114201 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City New York, NY Donor

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. 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?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. 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". 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. What happens when a young man grows up and thinks he needs no father? It’s not a great reach from there to the conclusion that he doesn’t need to be one, either. And the cycle continues.” Each chapter discusses how to learn the topic from other guys, often with the author relating personal stories. That is followed by a Lessons Learned section that discusses how to apply that topic to your own life, and the chapter ends with questions to consider.

Nicholas Pileggi admitted somewhere that the screenplay for Goodfellas, co-written with Martin Scorsese, improved on his book: it's more succinct, more impactful. He was right.Nicholas Pileggi's non fiction book, ' Wiseguy', is the basis for the film, GoodFellas, directed by Martin Scorsese (1990). It's the true story of Henry Hill, a member of the Lucchese organised crime family in New York. Henry's heyday takes place during the 1960s and 1970s when he works under the protection of mob boss Paul Vario in the Brownsville-East New York section of Brooklyn.

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.It is this disregard for other people that makes this such a chilling book. In this world of wiseguys, all is theirs for the taking. In fact, it made me think that if this is still the case, that anything you happen to possess that is of interest to the Mob can be taken away from you, the much-touted American concept of freedom is not very valid. At least you're not free to own things, and if you try to put your case to the law, Hill provides ample examples of how both the police and the judicial system has members on the take.