Rating: 
Summary: A real page turner!!
Review: After watching Goodfella's, I just had to read the book which inspired this movie. To say this book was exceptional reading, is an understatement! I could not put this book down. It was filled with facts that were not in the movie and I found myself laughing and crying as Henry Hill told his story. The end was very sad. Reading as Henry ratted out all of his mafia friends. I just heard about Henry Hill on the radio. Picked up with drugs. His wife divorced him after 20 years and I believe he no longer has protection due to his criminal activities. Anyway, my advice is to read this book! Excellent!
Rating:
Summary: The Best of its Type
Review: Anyone who may have seen the movie Godfellas, might have thought the movie too fast paced to follow. That is not the case for this book from which the movie was made. This non-fiction tale of Henry Hill, a soldier in one of the smaller New York crime families is very easy to follow as well as extremely difficult to put down once you start. You actually develop a liking for the main character, who is way more passive then his two partners who kill without compunction or remorse. Though none of them ever becomes a 'made' man, they seem to be right on the cusp of a lot of big Mafia related events that happened in the 1970's and 80's. Having read The Valachi Papers and Sammy Gravanno's autobiography, I find this book the best of the bunch.
Rating:
Summary: A fast paced, real life thriller.
Review: Astounding! "Wise Guy" is one of the greatest books I have ever read, and certainly is the gratest book on the mafia out there. I am known to be the local mafia expert in my area having not only seen all the movies but read all the books and "Wiseguy" is not only the best book on La Cosa Nostra it is a book that I myself could not put down.After finishing "Wiseguy" for the second time, I think that it should have won a pulitzer prize for non-fiction. The book is that engrossing and acurate (taking into account that Henry Hill, the focus of the book and the movie "Godfellas", has told the truth throughout the interview with Pileggi and has not exagerated). Whether a fan of the mafia or not, "Wiseguy" gives those who read it a view through the eyes of a highly connected man in the mafia and if you were'nt a fan of reading about the mafia before, this book will certainly pull you in as you see not only how the mafia is run, but how it works, the different rackets, murders, and even how they got away with it. This is the question that gets me interested: With all these murders, how do they get away with almost every single one? When you start looking at this, most men in the mafia are put away for burglury, racketeering, hijacking, money laundering, but almost never murder. I know of many high men in the mafia that were put away for life in prison for tax evasion. TAX EVASION! When these men have at least 10 hits under their belt. "Wiseguy" has answered this question for me but it never ceases to amaze me. Well, "Wiseguy" is a highly recommended book. Read it. You'll enjoy every page of it.
Rating: 
Summary: A good book to read
Review: Before I bought this book I did not realize that the movie Goodfellas coincided with this book. I am not a huge fan of reading books, but I do like to read one once in a while. I enjoyed this book a lot. Most of the chapters were great. I found difficult to put the book down most of the time. The life of Henry Hill is pretty interesting. Most people look at the mob in the eyes of the Godfather movies. This shows that life in the mob is not always that great for the members and their families. Give this book a read its worth it!
Rating:
Summary: What it was really like
Review: For those of you who have seen Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas and loved it--and I know there are many of you--you owe it to yourself to read the book upon which it is based. Nicholas Pileggi does a superb job of bringing the real life of crime lived by Henry Hill into the mind of the reader. There are several notable differences between details in the book and the way they are rendered on the screen by Scorsese; for instance, the names of people have obviously been changed in some, certainly not all, cases (i.e. Henry Hill and his family are the same, of course). But the best thing about Pileggi's book is the way it goes the extra mile and much more in filling in the gaps, giving us the entire scoop on key events, such as the Lufthansa heist and Henry's prison life, where the movie is only able to graze the surface. Believe me, owning this book is like being able to carry around the testament of Henry Hill in all its juicy glory. Alternating between hard-egded, unflinching reportage style and actual "straight from the horse's mouth" confessions spoken by Hill himself, as well as by his wife Karen and a few other more minor personnages, Pileggi weaves a dizzying spell that goes well beyond the who-did-what-when-where school of crime writing. As I was reading I truly got a sense of what inspired Henry Hill to choose the path he did and, thanks to Pileggi's sure hand as a guide, even able to appreciate his choices in some way. Definitely a must-read. Waste no time, get to it.
Rating:
Summary: Mafia junkie
Review: Hello my name is Marta and I am a Mafiaholic. This is a great book for those who like the Mob. The book that gave life to one of the best movies the GoodFellas is trully a masterpiece. This gives such a vivid portrayal to the Mafia world. The only thing about the book I didnt like were some of the legal document pieces. But I highly reccomend this book to anyone who likes Mafia books and movies.
Rating:
Summary: If you liked the film Goodfellas...
Review: If you liked the film Goodfellas,then you will most likely love this great book!!! Awesome!!! A great read!!! A great companion to the classic film!!! Five Stars!!! A+
Rating:
Summary: Amazing book!!!!!!!!!
Review: If you thought the movie Goodfellas was amazing then you must read the book!!!!!
The book and the movie are very similar and blend almost identical.
However, the book gives you alot more depth and more information.
More importantly the book gives you dozens of other great stories that are not mentioned in the movie.
Learn about dozens of other Henry hills scams including the famous boston college basketball scams.
You dont have to a "mob lover" to read this. I dont like the mafia at all but I love the drama in the mob books.
Henry Hill is a scam artist and not your average cold-blooded mob scum-bag killer. People can all relate to henry on some level.
Rating:
Summary: Wiseguy
Review: It was one of the biggest heists in American history. The cash payoff had so many zeros after it; it would have made any regular workingman faint. Everything went according to plan, and the guy who helped make it all happen was Henry Hill. This man practically grew up in the mafia, although he could never be made because he wasn't 100% Italian. But after all the success, everyone involved started turning against each other and turning up dead in their Cadillacs with ice-picks through the back of their heads, or frozen to death in the back of an ice locker. Henry Hill was the only one who made it out of the thing out of jail or alive, and Nicholas Pileggi brings his amazing story to life in "Wiseguy."
The book follows the real-life rise and fall of Henry Hill: from age 11 when he started working at the cabstand across the street from his house running errands for a fat mob boss named Vario; to age 22, when he met and married the love of his life Karen; to when his last resort to escape his coke addiction, jail or death was to rat out his accomplices and go into witness protection. As the jacket of the book says: "This is no guided tour. The reader is taken deep inside the inner workings of organized crime." Luckily this story was put into publication by an author like Nicholas Pileggi who tells it like a grainy, 1930's mobster flick, complete with fiery blasts of James Cagney-style gangster glory.
The book flows and feels like a movie, in fact the great Martin Scorsese adapted the book to film in the Oscar winning, 1990 classic, Goodfellas. The film did a brilliant job illustrating the epic story-Scorsese couldn't have gotten a better cast. Every time Henry Hill spoke in the book, I heard Ray Liotta speaking, and every time the notorious Tommy Vario beat some guy into submission and looked down at the poor sap's bloody face and laughed I saw Joe Pesci. In conclusion, after reading the book, I felt like I knew the characters. I felt like I had just sat down with Henry Hill himself and he told the whole thing to me. The way the book was written (the slang, the foul language, and the action) only reinforced this feeling. The book also gave me a new respect for the film I already loved, Goodfellas. I recommend this book to anyone who likes action or crime movies and books, and I would definitely read some other books by Nicholas Pileggi, or even re-read this one. "Wiseguy" is truly a Mafioso masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Wiseguy
Review: It was one of the biggest heists in American history. The cash payoff had so many zeros after it; it would have made any regular workingman faint. Everything went according to plan, and the guy who helped make it all happen was Henry Hill. This man practically grew up in the mafia, although he could never be made because he wasn't 100% Italian. But after all the success, everyone involved started turning against each other and turning up dead in their Cadillacs with ice-picks through the back of their heads, or frozen to death in the back of an ice locker. Henry Hill was the only one who made it out of the thing out of jail or alive, and Nicholas Pileggi brings his amazing story to life in "Wiseguy."
The book follows the real-life rise and fall of Henry Hill: from age 11 when he started working at the cabstand across the street from his house running errands for a fat mob boss named Vario; to age 22, when he met and married the love of his life Karen; to when his last resort to escape his coke addiction, jail or death was to rat out his accomplices and go into witness protection. As the jacket of the book says: "This is no guided tour. The reader is taken deep inside the inner workings of organized crime." Luckily this story was put into publication by an author like Nicholas Pileggi who tells it like a grainy, 1930's mobster flick, complete with fiery blasts of James Cagney-style gangster glory.
The book flows and feels like a movie, in fact the great Martin Scorsese adapted the book to film in the Oscar winning, 1990 classic, Goodfellas. The film did a brilliant job illustrating the epic story-Scorsese couldn't have gotten a better cast. Every time Henry Hill spoke in the book, I heard Ray Liotta speaking, and every time the notorious Tommy Vario beat some guy into submission and looked down at the poor sap's bloody face and laughed I saw Joe Pesci. In conclusion, after reading the book, I felt like I knew the characters. I felt like I had just sat down with Henry Hill himself and he told the whole thing to me. The way the book was written (the slang, the foul language, and the action) only reinforced this feeling. The book also gave me a new respect for the film I already loved, Goodfellas. I recommend this book to anyone who likes action or crime movies and books, and I would definitely read some other books by Nicholas Pileggi, or even re-read this one. "Wiseguy" is truly a Mafioso masterpiece.
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