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Goodfellas (Bloomsbury Film Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Nicholas Pileggi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
Buy New: £1.40
You Save: £5.59 (80%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 49827
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 074757863X
EAN: 9780747578635
ASIN: 074757863X
Publication Date: September 5, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW - IMMEDIATE DISPATCH - UK DELIVERY 2-4 WORKING DAYS - 1ST CLASS CUSTOMER SERVICE - UK LTD COMPANY - UNBEATABLE
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Welcome to the world of New York organised crime; of heists, extortion, family, gambling, molls and casual violence. This is the book that inspired the film, written by Nicholas Pileggi in 1985 and originally entitled Wiseguy. Martin Scorsese read it, contacted Pileggi who apparently "had been waiting for this phone call all my life", and between them they wrote the screenplay for the hugely popular 1990 movie. The resulting blend of snappy dialogue, snappier editing and superb ensemble acting tended to overshadow Scorsese's dubious ambivalence towards violence, but the audience was blown away more spectacularly than one of Tommy De Vito's victims. Pileggi's book was written with Henry Hill, whose life it describes. The narrative switches between Pileggi, Hill, and Hill's wife Karen, all delivered with the smooth action of a well-polished Magnum. It proves utterly compelling, breathlessly serving up an action-fuelled life of criminal excess with Henry starting as an aspirant 12-year-old errand runner ("To be a wiseguy was better than being president of the United States. To be a wiseguy was to own the world"), and progressing to such a status within the Mob that when he is finally nailed he turns Federal witness to implicate his former cronies, a move that represents his only chance to save his family's necks. The irony for Hill is that his fictionalised life story has been seen by millions, but he cannot tell anyone without jeopardising his new identity, which means he gets "to live the rest of my life as a shnook". As a source the book runs very close to the film, and someone who know the film will find it hard not to picture Scorseses's stylised realisation as they read, while those who don't will discover a grittily related, authentically grim amorality tale of a life shot through with brutality and survivalist scheming that stands on its own without the Big Screen treatment. Surprisingly bleak. --David Vincent
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Top notch real life crime writing June 20, 2008
This is one of the best real life crime books I've ever read. It's exhilarating, powerful stuff - not at all hard to see why it made such a good film. The writing style helps the subject matter hugely and Henry Hill is what he is in the movie, and then some. Very, very strongly recommended.
 This is the script of the film goodfellas not the book wiseguy by Pileggi February 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Will everyone stop going on about how good Wiseguy is by Pileggi when this book is the script and screenplay of the film goodfellas
Could this be better than the film adaption August 27, 2007
"Goodfellas" (originally "Wise Guys") by Nicholas Pileggi from the moment i started becoming engrossed, made me ponder something-could this actually be superior to the quality of the cult film.
Pileggi for a start, has crammed more information in the book for all to unleash. The simple thing is this, where they are obvious gaps in the film-for example the time period between 1955-1963 and 1970-1974-there is enough patience to explain what happened.
The continous feelings that Pileggi addresses the book is by a question-and-answer technique. "Goodfellas" is taken lightly and drifts through his upbringing with little ease as if it really was Hill that was describing it (although later there are parts where he becomes first person in his own experience and also his wife Karen's view of his decisions as second person). Pileggi also takes the time to tell us about Paulie's two brothers, one of them being Tutti describing his background knowledge, being the one (we all should know) who ran the cab stand where the adventurous Hill first found employment with-a job that was meant to be part-time, but became full-time.
Pileggi's also discusses the importance of historical events as part of the story being the convertion of the Idlewild Golf Course into the main airport for New York City in the late 1930's and his compulsory army drafting in the late 1950's (1958). The Idlewild Airport is an essential assest, which becomes very early on in the mafia of Hill, the attraction and desperation of Hill's buddies play area to hide drugs on charter flights and collect them later to sell off for money-even to the extent of Paulie telling Hill, that he found the money from the Las Vegas Plane Crash if anyone ever did ask.
The relationship between the three men never bond as well as you always get the impression. Pileggi tells the truth describing the honesty of the characters of both Burke and DeVito as hard men with violent intentions on their mind, in comparison to the morally selfish, weak, obbessive (later having a gambling obbession largely absent from the film, if the signs weren't apparent towards the end) and cowardious Hill. For example when he is determined to be transferred over to Allenwood in 1974 so he can be close to Burke so he can experience the way they live, which he always feels he is being denied in the mafia. Being realistic, he doesn't have a clue how these men really behave like, he just wants to be part of the action and the crowd, he wants to be closer to the truth but it gets too much for him.
Pileggi acknowledges towards the end the outcome of Hill's fall from grace-concerning the distaterous Lufantsa heist and McDonald's involvement-how Hill initinally was well focused to how he became an ecastic druggie and practically begged for help, but didn't want to admit working amongst real killers and it wasn't always a laugh, it was serious business always. Pileggi even notes what Henry Hill ends up going for a living in the end, but does not mention his arrest in Seattle in 1987 nor his divorce from Karen Hill in 1989 which was added for the purpose of the film-since the book predeceased these events.
 Ever since i was young i always wanted to gloryfy myself.. July 27, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book for me was a mixed can of worms. Although i thoroughly enjoyed it and didnt put it down (as im a massive fan of the film) at times i became very bored. I think the reason for this is because i have already seen the film. I feel this book will be more enjoyable for readers who havent watched the film. Why? il tell you. In the film henry and karen narate in the backgroung, well they do this throughout the book aswell and i found that as i was reading the book i could hear thier voices in my head, and this got very tedious. I dunno if other readers would feel the same but at times i felt like the book was word-to-word with the film. Also Hill seems to gloryfy himself alot. This annoyed me, but not all is bad. There is a lot of scams in the book not in the film which are very interesting and 'new'. I recomend this book because it provides an interesting acount of life in the mob from a street players point of view and is a must read for all budding mafia readers.
stop writing the same review several times March 29, 2005
2 out of 9 found this review helpful
Perhaps if Amazon could prevent the same individual writing the same review repeatedly then it would be more useful to customers such as myself who are thinking of making a purchase. Whoever this guy is...get a life.
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