Surrender

Bono Autobiography: 40 Songs, One Story

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Never one to take a step backwards, Bono’s autobiography makes for a fascinating read as he doesn’t shy away from his faults or doubts that have plagued him throughout his life. It’s this forthright honesty that gives the book its energy-using song titles as a starting point he delves into the early stages of the band, losing his mother at 14 and his somewhat tempestuous relationship with his father. Bono’s philanthropy has him working with different administrations of the US Government in a bid to cancel out third world debt and in supplying Africa with appropriate medication to help in the battle against AIDS. What sustains Bono is the band and his family but mainly his wife Ali, whom he met as teenager and has been with ever since.   Greg

Bono - artist, activist and the lead singer of Irish rock band U2 - has written a memoir; honest and irreverent, intimate and profound, Surrender is the story of the remarkable life he's lived, the challenges he's faced and the friends and family who have shaped and sustained him.

'When I started to write this book I was hoping to draw in detail what I'd previously only sketched in songs. The people, places, and possibilities in my life. Surrender is a word freighted with meaning for me. Growing up in Ireland in the seventies with my fists up (musically speaking), it was not a natural concept. A word I only circled until I gathered my thoughts for the book. I am still grappling with this most humbling of commands. In the band, in my marriage, in my faith, in my life as an activist. Surrender is the story of one pilgrim's lack of progress ... With a fair amount of fun along the way.' - Bono

As one of the music world's most iconic artists and the cofounder of organizations ONE and (RED), Bono's career has been written about extensively. But in Surrender, it's Bono who picks up the pen, writing for the first time about his remarkable life and those he has shared it with. In his unique voice, Bono takes us from his early days growing up in Dublin, including the sudden loss of his mother when he was 14, to U2's unlikely journey to become one of the world's most influential rock bands, to his more than 20 years of activism dedicated to the fight against AIDS and extreme poverty. Writing with candour, self-reflection, and humour, Bono opens the aperture on his life - and the family, friends and faith that have sustained, challenged and shaped him.

Surrender's subtitle, 40 Songs, One Story, is a nod to the book's 40 chapters, which are each named after a U2 song. Bono has also created 40 original drawings for Surrender which will appear throughout the book.