Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story

Bono

Nov 2022 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Bono

About this audiobook

***WINNER OF THE 2024 AUDIE AWARD FOR AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR***

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.

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.

Ratings and reviews

Surrender is the perfect example of why I love reading memoirs by songwriters. They're natural storytellers; Bono is no exception. His stories made me think, laugh, cry, and want to dive into music, just like U2. He tackles the major moments in the bands' ~50 year history, but primarily tells stories of the important people throughout his life. There were definitely some stories in Surrender that I've heard in interviews or read in books. But there's also a ton of new ones or more enthralling versions of the stories every U2 fan already knows. Bono is...Bono. It'd be surprising if he DIDN'T make an arse out of himself at times, but you'll see that he mostly means well and tends to be his harshest critic. He's a lot more complex person than his critics make him seem. If the goal of a memoir or biography is to gain insight or understand the essence of a specific figure, Surrender goes above and beyond unraveling Bono. At times it even had me making sense of my own life and humankind.

I began listening to Bono's narration 9 hours ago and haven't paused yet. Fascinating, best author narration I have ever heard, sound effects, music, singing, intermixed with personal storytelling. Through the inflections of Bono's voice I'm able to visualize everything, fully engaged in Bono's words, and memories. His life parallels the length of my own and my interest as a fan, Surrender is a gift to any fan of U2.

Absolutely enthralling. One of the most enjoyable audio books I have heard, full of inventiveness, charm, poetry, inspiration and back stories behind songs, fascinating stories about the band, cultural and political anecdotes dotted by reimagined songs, sound effects, and bursts of poetic visions with some Irish mysticism and an exploration of Bono's unique faith that informs so much of his extraordinary life of music and activism sprinkled throughout.

About the author

The lead singer of U2, Bono was born Paul David Hewson in Dublin. He met The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr., and Adam Clayton at school, and in 1978, U2 was formed. The band released their first album, Boy, on Island Records in 1980 and to date have released a total of fourteen studio albums that have sold 157 million copies worldwide. Heralded by Rolling Stone as “a live act simply without peer,” the band’s record-breaking 360° Tour (2009–2011) remains the highest-grossing concert band tour of all time. U2 have won numerous awards, including twenty-two Grammys, more than any other duo or group, as well as an Academy Award nomination and the Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award. In 2005, U2 was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
 
Alongside his role in U2, Bono is a ground-breaking activist. A leader in Jubilee 2000’s Drop the Debt campaign, he next took on the fight against HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty, co-founding sister organizations ONE and (RED). ONE is a movement of millions of people dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease. With ONE, Bono has lobbied heads of state and legislatures all around the world, helping to ensure the passage of programs, such as the U.S. PEPFAR AIDS program, that have helped to save tens of millions of lives over the past twenty years. (RED)—which partners with companies to raise public awareness about, and corporate contributions for, the AIDS crisis—has to date generated more than $700 million for the Global Fund to treat and prevent AIDS in Africa. Since 2020, ONE and (RED) have also been fighting COVID-19 and its impact on the developing world. 
 
In 2016, Bono co-founded the Rise Fund, a global impact fund investing in entrepreneurial companies driving positive social and environmental change in alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
 
Bono has received a number of awards for his music and activism, including the Freedom of the City of Dublin (with U2), Chile’s Pablo Neruda Medal of Honor, the Légion d’honneur from the French government, an honorary British knighthood, the Fulbright Prize for International Understanding, and TIME magazine’s Person of the Year (along with Bill and Melinda Gates). He lives in Dublin with his wife Ali Hewson.