"At twelve years old, all my dreams boiled down to becoming a gangster. A nice guy. As for me, being a gangster is better than being the president of America. Having power among those who do not have it. Those local hard-working nobodies, who had no rights. To be a gangster meant to rule the whole world."

Nicholas Pileggi's vivid and frank journalistic chronicles of the life of Henry Hill, a working-class Brooklyn boy who, from the age of twelve, realized that “being a mafioso - Having the Whole World at Your Feet," which endured all the ups and downs of gangster life, was voted "the best book about organized crime."

This bestselling crime novel, the basis of Martin Scorsese's masterpiece, "Goodfellas," which won 32 awards and 18 nominations at various film festivals, was nominated for 6 Academy Awards in 1991, including Best Picture of the Year, brought Joe Pesci an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Martin Scorsese a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival movie for best director, brings to life the everyday life of a gangster - violence, murder, family life, drugs, bribery, payback, prison sentences and the feds.

Read the book and live the secret life of a gangster.