From Louis Ferrante, a one-time mafia thug and federal prison inmate, comes this remarkable and moving memoir of his journey from a life of crime to that of a promising writer
Up until his incarceration, Louis Ferrante led the life of a mobster. As a young ruffian, he made his reputation by leading a street gang and shooting a neighborhood bully. Later, he became connected with John Gotti Jr. and the Gambino crime family. During his time with the mob, Ferrante committed the most lucrative robberies in US history, many of which are still unsolved. But soon enough, the law caught up to him. Indictments came from the Secret Service, the Nassau County Organized Crime Force, and the FBI (twice) and Louis found himself behind bars.
In jail, Louis read his first book and a new world was opened up to him. During the course of his 8 years he read everything from Caesar’s Gallic Wars to Danielle Steele and everything in between. With only what he could teach himself, Louis successfully appealed his own conviction, a landmark case that now appears in textbooks. In addition to law, Ferrante studied the three major faiths, including Buddhism. He eventually chose to become an Orthodox Jew.
Free from prison, Ferrante’s memoir retells his meteoric rise to the upper-echelon of the mafia hierarchy, his time in prison, and the astonishing turn around his life has made. After spending most of his life involved with crime or in jail, Louis Ferrante has reinvented himself as a writer. With a crisp yet harsh writing style similar to Charles Bukowski, Ferrante’s stories of crime with the mob and his time spent in prison are sure to captivate audiences.

Unlocked: A Journey from Prison to Proust

Biographies & Memoirs

FERRANTE, LOUIS

True Crime

Harper

Louis Ferrante began hijacking delivery trucks at age seventeen, and New York's infamous Gambino crime family took notice. By twenty-one, Ferrante's Mafia connections had enabled him to pull off some of the most lucrative heists in history. But betrayals by close friends brought Ferrante a slew of federal indictments, and he would spend the next decade as an inmate in some of America's most notorious penitentiaries—with ample time to ponder life's essential questions: Who am I? What makes me this way? Do I have a purpose? In the prison library he embarked on an extraordinary journey of the mind that took him from history to philosophy to major world religions, from the art of writing to the law. And after successfully appealing his own conviction—in a case now cited in courtrooms across the country—Ferrante walked away from prison a writer and a profoundly changed man. Unlocked is a remarkable memoir of personal transformation—a true story that is shocking, brutal, inspiring, and unforgettable.

Unlocked: The Life and Crimes of a Mafia Insider

Harper-perennial

Tough Guy: A Memoir by Louis Ferrante

Bantam]

The Three Pound Crystal Ball is a landmark book that combines physics, psychology, personal experiences, extensive research, and neuroscience to establish that the dreaming brain can indeed see the future, and in turn prepare for it; a book for scientists and non-scientists alike, or anyone that has ever dreamt a dream that came true.Louis Ferrante takes the reader on a journey through history and time to unravel his brain/time theory. His startling conclusion: The brain can indeed see the near future.

The Three Pound Crystal Ball: The Theory of Sleep A.I.D. and the Unconscious Mind's Exclusive Access Into the Corridors of Time

Science & Math

Behavioral Sciences

MAIJ Publishing

The Three Pound Crystal Ball is a landmark book that combines physics, psychology, personal experiences, extensive research, and neuroscience to establish that the dreaming brain can indeed see the future, and in turn prepare for it; a book for scientists and non-scientists alike, or anyone that has ever dreamt a dream that came true. Louis Ferrante takes the reader on a journey through history and time to unravel his brain/time theory. His startling conclusion: The brain can indeed see the near future.

The Three Pound Crystal Ball: How the Dreaming Brain Can See the Future

The Mafia: A Modern History

History

The Mob is notorious for its cruel and immoral practices, but its most successful members have always been extremely smart businessmen. Now, former mobster Louis Ferrante reveals its surprisingly effective management techniques and explains how to apply them-legally-to any legitimate business. As an associate of the Gambino family, Ferrante relied on his instincts to pull off some of the biggest heists in U.S. history. By the age of twenty-one, he had netted millions of dollars for his employers. His natural talent for management led Mafia bosses to rely on him. After being arrested and serving an eight-and-a-half-year prison sentence, Ferrante went straight. He realized that the Mob's most valuable business lessons would allow him to survive and thrive in the real world. Now he offers eighty-eight time-tested Mafia strategies, including: * Go get your own coffee!: Respecting the chain of command without being a sucker. * The walls have ears: Never bad-mouth the boss. * Is this phone tapped?: Watch what you say every day. * How to bury the hatchet-but not in someone's head. * Don't split yourself in half: The wrong decision is better than none at all. * Don't build Yankee stadium, just supply the concrete: Spotting new rackets. * Leave the gun, take the cannolis...and beware of hubris. Ferrante brings his real-life experiences to the book, offering fascinating advice that really works and sharing behind-the-scenes episodes almost as outrageous as those occurring on Wall Street every day.

Mob Rules: What the Mafia Can Teach the Legitimate Businessman

Business & Money

Management & Leadership

Portfolio

Mob Rules is an INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER, translated into 15 languages. "Ferrante draws on an extensive knowledge of world events, Mob lore, and personal experience to deliver an engrossing effort that reads like a rousing memoir, meditation on world history, and Mafia exposé all in one." --Kirkus Reviews Former mobster turned writer Louis Ferrante reveals the surprisingly effective management techniques of organized crime and explains how to apply them in any legitimate business. Ferrante ran his own crew within the Gambino Crime Family, and masterminded some of the biggest heists in U.S. history. His talent for management was the key to his success on the streets. Now he offers time-tested Mafia wisdom based on true stories. As a testament to the book's expert business adivce, Mob Rules was nominated for the 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards.

Business Culture

A riveting history of the Mafia from 1860s Sicily to 1960s America--as narrated by a former heist expert and Gambino family mobster. The culmination Louis Ferrante's exhaustive research delving deep into Sicily's socio-economic-political roots, Borgata: Rise of Empire will finally reveal exactly how and why this infamous secret society formed inside Sicilian culture. Ferrante then engages in the art of storytelling by carefully selecting stories about the mafia in Sicily that allow him to follow the main characters to America, where most arrive as fugitives from Italian justice. Across the Atlantic, the storyline picks up in places like New York and New Orleans, where the clannish Sicilians quickly realize the importance of diversity as they forge new alliances with other recently arrived ethnic groups as the borgata becomes the premier organized criminal network in the country. After planting their flags in cities across America, the adolescent American mafia realizes how to corrupt America's police and political establishment, and they become experts at bribing public officials, allowing them to extend their tentacles into every level of American society. In this first volume, Ferrante traces the mafia's phenomenal "rise of empire" through larger-than-life characters such as Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Seigel, Albert Anastasia, and other legendary mobsters as they provide alcohol to the American public during Prohibition, penetrate industrial labor unions, practically take over the island of Cuba and, with extraordinary vision, create the gambling mecca of Las Vegas.

Borgata: Rise of Empire: A History of the American Mafia (Borgata Trilogy)

Americas

Pegasus Books

Borgata: Clash of Titans: A History of the American Mafia: Volume 2 of the Borgata Trilogy

Pegasus Crime

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