Author: C. Clark Criscuolo
Publisher: Zebra Books
ISBN: 9780821748022
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
In this high-spirited and witty first novel, Criscuolo serves up a wickedly funny, charming romp--where love is murder and the Mafia is the matchmaker. Goodfellas meets Bonfire of the Vanities.--Los Angeles Daily News. Martin's.
Author: Fred Gardaphe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135397791
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
The gangster, in the hands of the Italian American artist, becomes a telling figure in the tale of American race, gender, and ethnicity - a figure that reflects the autobiography of an immigrant group just as it reflects the fantasy of a native population. From Wiseguys to Wise Men studies the figure of the gangster and explores its social function in the construction and projection of masculinity in the United States. By looking at the cultural icon of the gangster through the lens of gender, this book presents new insights into material that has been part of American culture for close to 100 years.
Author: Aaron Lecklider
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520395581
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373
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Book Description
How queerness and radical politics intersected—earlier than you thought. Well before Stonewall, a broad cross section of sexual dissidents took advantage of their space on the margins of American society to throw themselves into leftist campaigns. Sensitive already to sexual marginalization, they also saw how class inequality was exacerbated by the Great Depression, witnessing the terrible bread lines and bread riots of the era. They participated in radical labor organizing, sympathized like many with the early prewar Soviet Union, contributed to the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, opposed US police and state harassment, fought racial discrimination, and aligned themselves with the dispossessed. Whether they were themselves straight, gay, or otherwise queer, they brought sexual dissidence and radicalism into conversation at the height of the Left's influence on American culture. Combining rich archival research with inventive analysis of art and literature, Love’s Next Meeting explores the relationship between homosexuality and the Left in American culture between 1920 and 1960. Aaron S. Lecklider uncovers a lively cast of individuals and dynamic expressive works, revealing remarkably progressive engagement with homosexuality among radicals, workers, and the poor. Leftists connected sexual dissidence with radical gender politics, antiracism, and challenges to censorship and obscenity laws through the 1920s and 1930s. In the process, a wide array of activists, organizers, artists, and writers laid the foundation for a radical movement through which homosexual lives and experiences were given shape and new political identities were forged. Love's Next Meeting cuts to the heart of some of the biggest questions in American history: questions about socialism, about sexuality, about the supposed clash still making headlines today between leftist politics and identity politics. What emerges is a dramatic, sexually vibrant story of the shared struggles for liberation across the twentieth century.
Author: George De Stefano
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429927623
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 633
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Book Description
A provocative and entertaining look at the mafia, the media, and the (un)making of Italian Americans. As evidenced in countless films, novels, and television portrayals, the Mafia has maintained an enduring hold on the American cultural imagination--even as it continues to wrongly color our real-life perception of Italian Americans. In An Offer We Can't Refuse, George De Stefano takes a close look at the origins and prevalence of the Mafia mythos in America. Beginning with a consideration of Italian emigration in the early twentieth century and the fear and prejudice--among both Americans and Italians--that informed our earliest conception of what was at the time the largest immigrant group to enter the United States, De Stefano explores how these impressions laid the groundwork for the images so familiar to us today and uses them to illuminate and explore the variety and allure of Mafia stories--from Coppola's romanticized paeans to Scorsese's bloody realism to the bourgeois world of David Chase's Sopranos--while discussing the cultural richness often contained in these works. De Stefano addresses the lingering power of the goodfella cliché and the lamentable extent to which it is embedded in our consciousness, making it all but impossible to green-light a project about the Italian American experience not set in gangland. "Invites Italian-Americans of all backgrounds to the family table to discuss how mob-related movies and television shows have affected the very notion of what their heritage still means in the 21st century." -- Allen Barra, The New York Sun
Author: Nicholas Pileggi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1982129905
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
Nicholas Pileggi’s vivid, unvarnished, journalistic chronicle of the life of Henry Hill—the working-class Brooklyn kid who knew from age twelve that “to be a wiseguy was to own the world,” who grew up to live the highs and lows of the mafia gangster’s life—has been hailed as “the best book ever written on organized crime” (Cosmopolitan). This is the true-crime bestseller that was the basis for Martin Scorsese’s film masterpiece GoodFellas, which brought to life the violence, the excess, the families, the wives and girlfriends, the drugs, the payoffs, the paybacks, the jail time, and the Feds…with Henry Hill’s crackling narration drawn straight out of Wiseguy and overseeing all the unforgettable action. “Nonstop...absolutely engrossing” (The New York Times Book Review). Read it and experience the secret life inside the mob—from one who’s lived it.
Author: Brian M. Thomsen
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
ISBN: 0740789295
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
After all that theft, racketeering, adultery, murder, and going to the mattresses, even a wiseguy needs a little pasta fazool for the soul. A hilarious self-help parody based on the exploits of Don Corleone, Anthony Soprano, and those other "made" guys. If your conscience is growing weary because you've had to off your best friend or you've recently learned exactly what was inside that envelope you were asked to deliver, take heart: Brian M. Thomsen and his associate, Don Minestrone, have got your back with more than 100 tales of redemptive goomba guidance and mobster lore. In the tradition of Chicken Soup for the Soul meets The Departed comes tales of family loyalty, mobster morals, and criminal compassion. So the next time you or someone from your clan goes to the mattresses on some trumped-up racketeering charge, we suggest you leave the gun and take the cannoli-and this book, of course.
Author: John Francis King
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0955851904
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 173
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Book Description
Wise Guy: the story of international life coaches Guy and Funky - they change your life, you change theirs. Enjoy the journey.
Author: David Evanier
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1118033566
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 315
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Book Description
The first complete biography of singing legend Tony Bennett Among America's greatest entertainers such as Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Ray Charles, and Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett alone is still here and at the top of his game. For the first time, All the Things You Are tells the incredible story of Bennett's life and sixty-year career, from his impoverished New York City childhood through his first chart-topping hits, from liberating a concentration camp to his civil rights struggles, from his devastating personal and career battles and addiction in the 1970's to his stunning comeback and emergence as a musical statesman, America's troubadour, role model and mentor, and unmatched interpreter of the American songbook. Takes a candid, unvarnished look at the amazing life of one of America's most enduring musical icons Based on dozens of author interviews with Bennett's family members,?agents, musicians, composers and managers, and experts on the last fifty years of popular music Filled with stories involving leading figures and entertainers of the twentieth-century, including Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fiorello LaGuardia, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ray Charles, Dean Martin, Billie Holliday, and more Whether you've been a Tony Bennett fan for decades or are just discovering him, this book will deepen your understanding of this hugely gifted entertainer and his music.
Author: Scott Allen Nollen
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476610045
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 373
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Book Description
As three of the most prominent actors of the early studio system, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, and Humphrey Bogart played an unparalleled role in the rise of the Warner Brothers Studio. These "Warners Wiseguys" are now virtually synonymous with the studio's era of gritty gangster films. This study of their interwoven studio-contract careers highlights the similarities of their personalities and their struggles with harsh typecasting. It details and comments critically on each of their combined 112 Warners films. Complete with commentary from the author and other film buffs. An appendix provides a filmographic guide to the films discussed, including lists of primary actors, release dates, directorial credits, and running times for each film.
Author: Guy Kawasaki
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525538615
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Silicon Valley icon and bestselling author Guy Kawasaki shares the unlikely stories of his life and the lessons we can draw from them. Guy Kawasaki has been a fixture in the tech world since he was part of Apple's original Macintosh team in the 1980s. He's widely respected as a source of wisdom about entrepreneurship, venture capital, marketing, and business evangelism, which he's shared in bestselling books such as The Art of the Start and Enchantment. But before all that, he was just a middle-class kid in Hawaii, a grandson of Japanese immigrants, who loved football and got a C+ in 9th grade English. Wise Guy, his most personal book, is about his surprising journey. It's not a traditional memoir but a series of vignettes. He toyed with calling it Miso Soup for the Soul, because these stories (like those in the Chicken Soup series) reflect a wide range of experiences that have enlightened and inspired him. For instance, you'll follow Guy as he . . . Gets his first real job in the jewelry business--which turned out to be surprisingly useful training for the tech world. Disparages one of Apple's potential partners in front of that company's CEO, at the sneaky instigation of Steve Jobs. Blows up his Apple career with a single sentence, after Jobs withholds a pre-release copy of the Think Different ad campaign: "That's okay, Steve, I don't trust you either." Reevaluates his self-importance after being mistaken for Jackie Chan by four young women. Takes up surfing at age 62--which teaches him that you can discover a new passion at any age, but younger is easier! Guy covers everything from moral values to business skills to parenting. As he writes, "I hope my stories help you live a more joyous, productive, and meaningful life. If Wise Guy succeeds at this, then that's the best story of all."
