What did you love about Goodfellas?
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
The Friends of Eddie Coyle is all overlapping dialogue where you learn everything from how criminals actually negotiate their survival.
City on Fire
City on Fire gives you the same 1970s New York where glamour and violence live on the same block.
American Tabloid
American Tabloid shows that the only difference between gangsters and government is who gets to write the history.
5 books like Goodfellas
- The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins — Higgins' 1972 novel about a small-time Boston crook shares Goodfellas' understanding that organized …
- American Tabloid by James Ellroy — Ellroy's novel about the intersection of the mob, the CIA, and the Kennedy assassination shares Good…
- The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro — Caro's biography of Robert Moses — the man who built modern New York through intimidation, manipulat…
- City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg — Hallberg's sprawling novel about New York in the 1970s — the same era as Goodfellas' peak years — we…
- Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi — The source material.
Picked for the feeling of Goodfellas, not its genre. Each one is explained below. One movie isn’t much to go on: rate four more and the books are picked for you.
Why these books
Scorsese didn't make a gangster movie about crime — he made one about the seduction of belonging. Henry Hill doesn't join the mob for money; he joins because it's the first time anyone makes him feel special. These books understand that same magnetic pull: the intoxication of being inside a world that runs on its own rules, and the price of discovering those rules apply to you too.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Higgins' 1972 novel about a small-time Boston crook shares Goodfellas' understanding that organized crime is mostly disorganized — petty betrayals, desperate calculations, and conversations in diners. Like Scorsese, Higgins makes the mundane mechanics of criminal life as compelling as the violence, and the dialogue is the best in crime fiction.
Read it with your book club →
American Tabloid
Ellroy's novel about the intersection of the mob, the CIA, and the Kennedy assassination shares Goodfellas' thesis that American power is a criminal enterprise with better PR. His prose — staccato, obscene, hypnotic — moves at the same cocaine velocity as Scorsese's Steadicam through the Copa.
Read it with your book club →
The Power Broker
Caro's biography of Robert Moses — the man who built modern New York through intimidation, manipulation, and the weaponization of public authority — is Goodfellas for people who went to law school instead of the street. The same intoxication with power, the same willingness to destroy anyone who gets in the way, the same discovery that the game has no exit.
Read it with your book club →
City on Fire
Hallberg's sprawling novel about New York in the 1970s — the same era as Goodfellas' peak years — weaves together punks, socialites, journalists, and criminals in a city that feels like it's about to either transform or collapse. Like Scorsese, Hallberg is fascinated by the energy that chaos generates, and the people who mistake proximity to that energy for control over it.
Read it with your book club →
Wiseguy
The source material. Pileggi's nonfiction account of Henry Hill's life contains details even the film couldn't fit — and reading it after seeing the movie is a masterclass in how Scorsese transforms journalism into myth. Every scene you remember is here, plus a hundred you don't, and the cumulative effect is even more devastating on the page.
Read it with your book club →Is Goodfellas based on a book?
Goodfellas is based on Nicholas Pileggi’s nonfiction book Wiseguy.
What should I read if I loved Goodfellas?
Start with The Friends of Eddie Coyle, American Tabloid and The Power Broker. 5 books on this page were picked for the feeling of Goodfellas, not its genre, with a reason for each.
Which book is most like Goodfellas?
The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins. Higgins' 1972 novel about a small-time Boston crook shares Goodfellas' understanding that organized crime is mostly disorganized — petty betrayals, desperate calculations, and conversations in diners.
These are for everyone who loved Goodfellas. Want books picked for you?
Someone who loved Goodfellas and 2001: A Space Odyssey reads different books from someone who loved Goodfellas and Coco. One movie isn’t much to go on. Rate four more — Goodfellas already counts — and the books are picked for you.
Rate four more moviesOr read it with your book club and talk about it while you’re still reading.