File Size: 1833 KB
Print Length: 306 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Reissue edition (September 27, 2011)
Publication Date: September 27, 2011
Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
Language: English
ASIN: B004T4KRCY
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
X-Ray: Enabled
Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: #37,565 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) #21 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > True Crime > Organized Crime #32 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Crime & Criminals > Criminology #49 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > True Crime > Organized Crime
This is an excellent book about the life of Henry Hill, a petty mobster in New York State. This book, of course, is the basis for the superb movie "Goodfellas."While The Godfather is a fictional account of the underworld's upper realm, Henry Hill was a part of the lower echelon of the Mafia. The people that run protection rackets, hold-ups, grand thefts, etc. and then pay tribute to the "made" members of the Mafia, who are mainly pure-blooded Sicilians and who form an elite that people like Henry Hill could do business with, but never quite be part of.The book is extremely interesting because of the picture it shows us of organized crime "where the rubber hits the road." The most astounding thing I took away from the book is that Hill and his confederates didn't really benefit all that much from their ill-gotten gains. Instead, they tended to literally throw their money away on a silly, lavish, extravagant lifestyle, featuring, for example $100 tips to doormen, big bribes to get the best tables at restaurants, etc. Hill explained that he saw no need to save because he could always generate all the earnings he needed. Wrong!Most of us are unaware that organized crime is such a large presence in society, costing all of us immense amounts of money. This book drives that point home and it is a shocking revelation.The other insight of the book, which also comes out brilliantly in the film, is that Hill and his fellow mobsters viewed themselves as far above ordinary schmucks who actually work for a living. After all, why work if you can spend a few hours a day playing the rackets making ten times as much?
Wiseguy: The 25th Anniversary Edition Liar's Poker (25th Anniversary Edition): Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street (25th Anniversary Edition) Wiseguy Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution: 25th Anniversary Edition Angelina Ballerina 25th Anniversary Edition A Chair for My Mother 25th Anniversary Edition (Reading Rainbow Books) Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes: 25th Anniversary edition Brother to a Dragonfly: 25th Anniversary Edition Prayers That Avail Much, 25th Anniversary Commemorative Gift Edition The Complete Maus, 25th Anniversary Edition On Writing the College Application Essay, 25th Anniversary Edition: The Key to Acceptance at the College of Your Choice Friday Night Lights, 25th Anniversary Edition: A Town, a Team, and a Dream The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition Griffin and Sabine, 25th Anniversary Limited Edition: An Extraordinary Correspondence The Haiku Handbook -25th Anniversary Edition: How to Write, Teach, and Appreciate Haiku The Fighting Ground 25th Anniversary Edition Scorpions, 25th Anniversary Edition 101 Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions, 25th Anniversary Edition The New Erotic Photography (Taschen 25th Anniversary) (German, English and French Edition) How to Study: 25th Anniversary Edition