Presents a plan for living and enjoying all that life has to offer--from food and drink to the company of good friends.

Attention would-be paesans: Can’t distinguish “gabagool” from “pasta fazool”? Not sure how to properly accessorize your track suit with gold chains? Does the phrase “go to the mattresses” make you sleepy? Now Steven R. Schirripa, The Sopranos’ own Bobby Bacala, exposes the inner mysteries of this unique Italian-American hybrid in A Goomba’s Guide to Life so that anyone can walk, talk, and live like a guy “from the neighborhood.” Über-goomba Steve Schirripa shows how being a goomba made him what he is today, offering lessons learned on his own journey from Bensonhurst to Vegas, and to his current gig as Bobby Bacala on one of TV’s most popular shows. Along the way, he shares secrets that will help you get in touch with your own inner goomba. You’ll learn what music to enjoy (Sinatra, yes; Snoop Dogg, no), what movies to watch (Raging Bull, yes; Titanic, never), which sports to follow (baseball is good; golf and tennis, fuhgeddaboudit), and even tips on goomba etiquette. Ever wonder how a real goomba gets the best seat in the house? (Hint: It involves tipping, jewelry, and intimidation.) Schirripa even includes goomba do’s and don’ts (never, ever criticize a goomba’s mother or her gravy; always wear more jewelry than you think you need). With knockout photographs of Schirripa and his compares, and insider information on how to think goomba, speak goomba, cook and eat goomba, and even how to behave at goomba weddings and funerals, A Goomba’s Guide to Life will show any wiseguy wannabe how to sing like a Soprano.

Stop crying! The Goomba Diet is here—the dolce vita diet that shows you how to eat more, drink more, laugh more, live more, and feel great while you’re doing it. The Goomba Diet is the personal lifestyle guide from Steven R. Schirripa—Bobby “Bacala” Baccalieri from HBO’s hit series The Sopranos and author of the bestseller A Goomba’s Guide to Life. Developed over decades of dreaming about and then living the high life, it’s a how-to guide for happy living—how to duke a maître d', how to order a good meal, how to be a good father, a good husband and a good friend, and how to behave at a wedding, a funeral, and on the job. You wanna have a good time? Do tip the maid; don’t tip the made guy. Do tip the D.J; don’t tip the D.A. Do tell the bride she’s beautiful; don’t tell her she’s hardly showing. Do give your kids an allowance; don’t offer to “make it interesting” by shooting craps for double or nothing. The Goomba Diet offers sensible weight-loss tips for the guy who’s gone too far: Touch your toes. If this is difficult, pay a guy to do it for you. It also offers helpful maintenance tips for the goomba who’s the perfect weight and wants to stay that way: Cut out those carbs. Only eat pastas that end in the letter i. So relax! Stop worrying about how much you’re eating, and start worrying about how much you’re enjoying it. Lose weight if you like—but live! Put a fork in your right hand, a hunk of bread in your left, and mangia like you mean it. HBO® and The Sopranos® are service marks of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P.

Move over, Miss Lonelyhearts . . . Steven R. Schirripa, author of the runaway bestsellerA Goomba’s Guide to Life, is back with more life lessons from the neighborhood, and this time the subject is love. Now, your average goomba may be better known for his penchant for gold chains and macaroni, but Steve Schirripa knows there is one driving force in a goomba’s life and that’s love—love for his mother and her Sunday sauce, his wife and kids, his friends, his goomar on the side, even for his car (and he better not catch you eating in it, if you know what’s good for you). In other words, the goomba is full of love, capice? Recalling stories of his own colorful journey from the streets of Bensonhurst to the bright lights of Las Vegas and stardom as Bobby “Bacala” Baccilieri in HBO’s hit series The Sopranos, Schirripa observes the finer points of amore in all its forms. Take, for instance, the boundaries of brotherly love: It’s okay, he explains, to go to a Mets game with your buddy but definitely not to a yoga class. Then there’s the tough love of la famiglia. Every goomba is a family man, after all. So you want him to tell the truth? Ask him to swear on the heads of his children. Steve also waxes poetic about romantic love, complete with goomba dating tips (“Do steal a kiss; don’t steal her purse”), what to look for in a real goomba broad (“Her? She’d go to the chair for me”), and a list of tender goomba movies (The Way We Was). Alternately touching, telling, and laugh-out-loud funny,The Goomba’s Book of Loveproves that no one loves as fiercely (or as frequently) as a goomba.

The author shares his misadventures in parenting two daughters, a journey that pitted his over-the-top personality against such challenges as boyfriends, birth control, and inappropriate teachers.

If you ask Nicholas Borelli II--better known as Nicky Deuce--winter in New Jersey is awfully boring compared to summertime in Brooklyn, where he had the best two weeks of his life. Now it's cold out, he's back in school, and he has to live without Grandma Tutti's home cooked Italian meals and Uncle Franklie's funny tough-guy attitude. But not for long! Nicky's father is throwing a New Year's Eve party and the whole family is going to stay at their house and the gang from Brooklyn is coming to visit. By Christmas, Nicky's home is brimming with Brooklyn accents. Grandma Tutti wastes no time taking over the kitchen while Uncle Frankie charms the neighbors and cousin Tommy beats up Dirk Van Allen, the biggest jer in the neighborhood. Suddenly Tommy becomes a local hero but he and Nicky also become the prime target of a bully's revenge. Nicky Deuce is about to find out that winter in New Jersey is anything but boring.

It’s July, and Nicholas Borelli II’s parents are scheduled to spend two weeks on a cruise. Nicholas will spend those two weeks, as he does every summer, at Camp Wannameka. The night before he’s to leave, however, there’s a phone call: thanks to an explosion in the septic system, camp is canceled. The only place for Nicholas to go instead is to his grandmother’s house in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York. Nicholas’s father grew up in Brooklyn, but you’d hardly know it. An Italian dinner at Nicholas’s house in the suburbs is whole wheat pasta, organic tomato sauce, and, if he’s lucky, a tofu meatball. And Brooklyn? Well, Brooklyn is the place his father left and never talks about. Nicholas has never been there, and he doesn’t want to go now. But when Nicholas tastes his grandma Tutti’s meatballs for the first time, gets a nickname from his uncle Frankie, and makes a friend in the neighborhood, his feelings about Brooklyn–and family–begin to change.