Surrender

Author Bono
Narrator Bono Bono
Publisher Random House
Publish Date 1 November 2022
Run Time 20 hours and 25 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Autobiography: arts and entertainment, Memoirs, Musicians, singers, bands and groups, Popular music.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Bono - artist, activist and the lead singer of Irish rock band U2 - has written his autobiography: 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.

Narrated by the author, SURRENDER is an intimate, immersive listening experience, telling stories from Bono's early days in Dublin, to joining a band and playing sold out stadiums around the world with U2, plus his more than 20 years of activism.

Throughout a remarkable life, music has always been a constant for Bono and in the audiobook, his distinctive voice is interwoven with a very personal soundtrack adding atmosphere and texture to each and every scene. From moments of classic U2 hits to snippets by The Clash, Patti Smith, Verdi, Johnny Cash and Mozart, SURRENDER also exclusively features clips of newly recorded reimagined versions of U2 songs including 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', 'With Or Without You', 'One', 'Beautiful Day' and more, glimpsed for the first time on 'SURRENDER: 40 Songs, One Story'.

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's new memoir, Surrender, elevates the audiobook into an art form.' The Times

"It is such an incredible listen." Zoe Ball

'If ever a memoir was designed for audio this is it' Financial Times

© Bono 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Critics Review

This is Bono at his best: thoughtful, reflective, revealing a wisdom that his rock-star persona covers up ... At the root of it all you don't doubt his decency or integrity

The Times

A rattling good yarn ... characteristically expansive, but it whizzes by ... Bono has storytelling verve and a genuine desire for self-examination and is enthusiastic about praising others, often at his own expense. ... [a] generous, energetic book

Guardian

Bono's memoir bares his soul ... Has any rock superstar written a more revealing biography? He deftly balances the comical and profound and packs anecdotes with cameos by the rich and famous, from Frank Sinatra to Pope John Paul II

Telegraph

Beautifully evoked, a mixture of Joycean exuberance and Chandleresque irony ... most revealing are the intimate personal experiences that shaped him and his chaotic creative process. Punctuating it all is the music. Each chapter uses a U2 song to pull us down memory lane

Sunday Times

A rewarding read about a loss-fuelled life lived to the full ... What makes much of this book so exciting and interesting, is that the sadness is overwhelmed by a desperate, frenzied desire to use life more richly since it has proved to be so fragile. Sadness is replaced here by an extraordinary and breathless zeal for friendship but also for love ... Surrender is, in its own generous way, a book written by an Irishman to tell his mother how much he misses her, to tell his mates how much he rates them, and to let his wife and children know how much he loves them

Irish Times

Bono's honesty will win over his harshest critics ... the U2 frontman's memoir is a trumph ... Honest, witty, informative and beautifully written. Surrender will surely join the ranks of the great rock memoirs

Irish Independent

Bono's prose is electrifyingly good. Not confected memories, but the messy, sometimes bathetic minutiae of lived experience, emotions remembered but only truly understood with hindsight and vocabulary that comes much later

Pete Paphides, author of 'Broken Greek'

Will engage and entertain you, full of extraordinary anecdotes and people from Sinatra and Johnny Cash to Pope Benedict and presidents.

Catherine Meyer, author and founder of WEP

Bono's book is absolutely brilliant

Simon Schama

A brilliant, very funny, very revealing, autobiography-through-music. Maybe the best book ever written about being a rockstar

Caitlin Moran

User Reviews

Book 5.0

Narration 5.0

5.0

I found Surrender to be a brilliant book and has made me look at the songs of U2 in a different light. I highly recommend this especially when listening in conjunction with the album Songs of Surrender. Funny, sad, informative and inspiring.

Colin Grigson 27/04/2023

5.0

Brilliant audio book, loved the music and the accents and the insights. Definitely recommend

nanajac 23/03/2023

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