I Am Ozzy |  | Author: Ozzy Osbourne
Creator: Chris Ayres
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $26.99
Buy Used: $11.75
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Seller: bluesky_books3
Rating:  147 reviews
Sales Rank: 11596
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition ~1st Printing
Pages: 416
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 0446569895
Dewey Decimal Number: 982.42166092
EAN: 9780446569897
ASIN: 0446569895
Publication Date: January 25, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"They've said some crazy things about me over the years. I mean, okay: 'He bit the head off a bat.' Yes. 'He bit the head off a dove.' Yes. But then you hear things like, 'Ozzy went to the show last night, but he wouldn't perform until he'd killed fifteen puppies . . .' Now me, kill fifteen puppies? I love puppies. I've got eighteen of the f**king things at home. I've killed a few cows in my time, mind you. And the chickens. I shot the chickens in my house that night.
It haunts me, all this crazy stuff. Every day of my life has been an event. I took lethal combinations of booze and drugs for thirty f**king years. I survived a direct hit by a plane, suicidal overdoses, STDs. I've been accused of attempted murder. Then I almost died while riding over a bump on a quad bike at f**king two miles per hour.
People ask me how come I'm still alive, and I don't know what to say. When I was growing up, if you'd have put me up against a wall with the other kids from my street and asked me which one of us was gonna make it to the age of sixty, which one of us would end up with five kids and four grandkids and houses in Buckinghamshire and Beverly Hills, I wouldn't have put money on me, no f**king way. But here I am: ready to tell my story, in my own words, for the first time.
A lot of it ain't gonna be pretty. I've done some bad things in my time. I've always been drawn to the dark side, me. But I ain't the devil. I'm just John Osbourne: a working-class kid from Aston, who quit his job in the factory and went looking for a good time."
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 147
 Most entertaining book I have EVER read! January 14, 2010
Sharon (Springfield, MA USA)
40 out of 43 found this review helpful
Seriously - if I could count the number of times I woke up the family laughing out loud in the middle of the night... I TRULY LOVED this book, but then again - I adore Ozzy and it's PURE OZZY at his most bare and truthful (and witty)! What a rare treat inside his sweet and crazy mind! I only wish this book could have gone on forever!
seriously awesome January 17, 2010
sodapopinski
38 out of 41 found this review helpful
This is really an incredible memoir. It's thoroughly entertaining from the first page to the last. It reads extremely fast and retains a sense of humor even in the darkest days (which as I am sure you know, are really, really dark). Ozzy's stories have become those of legend, but it's great to actually get them from the man himself in his own voice. And like I said, the book is very funny and extremely well done.
Such an incredible life to come from one that started out with no options other than becoming a factory worker. Black Sabbath literally invented heavy metal. This really was one of the best memoirs in any genre that I have ever read. Fascinating.
Very, very highly recommended.
Ozzy continues to flourish with each new creative partnership January 24, 2010
William Irwin (Kingston, PA United States)
37 out of 41 found this review helpful
How could Ozzy write a book? He's dyslexic and doesn't read. Well, how can he write songs if he's musically illiterate and doesn't play an instrument? The answer in both cases is that he gets help and he succeeds brilliantly. What's most surprising about this book is how much it sounds like Ozzy. I didn't think Ozzy's voice and sense of humor would come through in print, but they definitely do. Clearly, he dictated lots of material into a tape recorder, and his co-author did a great job of preserving and bringing out Ozzy's unique persona.
This book further confirms for me what I've always said: that Ozzy is a songwriting genius. Lots of people assume that he has just sponged off the talents around him from Iommi/Ward to Rhoads/Daisley to Lee to Wylde. But I've always said, look at what all those people have done before/and/or/after their time with Ozzy. Not much worthwhile in all cases. Meanwhile Ozzy continues to flourish with each new creative partnership.
The book is thin in lots of places where you'd like to hear more, and it runs a little long in other places where you've heard the stories before. The Jake E. Lee era is omitted completely. That's a shame. Ozzy should get over that resentment. He's won. Jake has done nothing worth speaking about without Ozzy, and meanwhile Ozzy has continued to receive acclaim for the past twenty plus years since Jake.
Any true Ozzy fan will love this book.
Funniest book i've read in ages December 2, 2009
Mitchell J. Hall (Sydney, NSW Australia)
18 out of 20 found this review helpful
This book is so funny.
The stories are fantastic. I challenge anyone to read the vicar and the afghan hash cake story and not laugh!!
It's good that Ozzy gets out some of the classic stories in his head. Sure the book mentions drug use and alcohol abuse yet what i like about it is that the book doesn't get bogged down on that issue. Unlike the Eric Clapton book.
The book has great photos. Is well written and is very entertaining. Once you start is very hard to put down.
Why informed Ozzy fans are safe to read it. February 2, 2010
Ratspit (California, United States)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
I'm actually right in the middle of reading it right now. I was very reluctant to get it, because I own several books on Black Sabbath already, books that are very detailed and very well researched (see recommended below). I was really concerned that this Ozzy book would just repeat the same old stories and be really inaccurate as well due to Ozzy and his memory. I did not want to waste the money. Well, I took the chance, and here's the deal. Many of the stories we've all heard before are repeated, but they have a great deal more detail about them, and come across in a much more personal way with more personal information involved. And it goes in detail into things I have NEVER heard anywhere before. And as far as I can tell, its pretty accurate. There are some things I wonder about, if they have been smoothed out for story telling purposes, but all in all, as far as I can tell based on the other well researched books I've read, this is accurate.
It's also very well written. It has a good flow and a great pacing to it. It's very hard to put down. The book is one of the most fun books I've ever read. It's funny, entertaining, and it's like sitting right down and spending some time listening to Ozzy tell stories (without the verbal pauses, etc). There is some sad stuff in the book as well, some bad stuff, and some definite hard learned lessons, but I never have felt anything preachy about it. All in all, its a must have if you are a fan.
I had a chance to meet Ozzy once, shook his hand for a brief moment at a meet and greet. That was great, but this is far more intimate. Ozzy gives a very warm direct thank you to us fans at the beginning of the book. This is directed right at us. It's very endearing. I've never been a fan of his reality show, don't like Sharon Osbourne (and that's putting it kindly and mildly), and only care about the music Ozzy has made. I have a few criticism about the book with regard to people or things left out, but otherwise, I recommend it. If someone could pull it off, if it was done right with a lot of care, it could make for a great film. The script is practically right here in this book, already written.
Some of the best books ever written on Black Sabbath that I recommend: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - The Battle For Black Sabbath by Garry Sharpe-Young; Black Sabbath - Doom Let Loose by Martin Popoff; How Black Was Our Sabbath: An Unauthorized View from the Crew by David Tangye and Graham Wright; Dio - The Light Beyond the Black by Martin Popoff.
Note: I'd also highly recommend the book, Off The Rails: Aboard The Crazy Train In The Blizzard Of Ozz, by Rudy Sarzo (he played bass on the first couple Ozzy solo albums). Sarzo's book is loaded with great information and stories about Ozzy's guitarist Randy Rhoads, his tragic death, and the whole early time period of Ozzy's solo career. It is not as "selective" in its memory as the I AM OZZY book is. It tells it like it was, warts and all. If you really want more of a complete story about Ozzy, I would recommend Sarzo's book in addition to Ozzy's.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 147
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