Movies from Bono

Sing Street

A boy growing up in Dublin during the 1980s escapes his strained family life by starting a band to impress the mysterious girl he likes.
Bono
Musician
My brother gave me the gift of music through my first guitar. We formed a band. In truth, at the same stage, U2 were not as good as the kids in Sing Street. In truth most films you'll see this year won't touch Sing Street.
Movies from Bono

Mean Streets

A small-time hood must choose from among love, friendship and the chance to rise within the mob.
Bono
Musician
American filmmakers had a big effect on us — people like Scorsese, from Mean Streets on, recognizing those characters trying to come to terms with violence. Violence is not widely discussed in relationship to U2, but it has been an obsession. It came out of living in a very violent era.
Books from Bono

The Moment of Lift

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“In her book, Melinda tells the stories of the inspiring people she’s met through her work all over the world, digs into the data, and powerfully illustrates issues that need our attention—from child marriage to gender inequity in the workplace.” — President Barack Obama“The Moment of Lift is an urgent call to courage. It changed how I think about myself, my family, my work, and what’s possible in the world. Melinda weaves together vulnerable, brave storytelling and compelling data to make this one of those rare books that you carry in your heart and mind long after the last page.” — Brené Brown, Ph.D., author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Dare to Lead “Melinda Gates has spent many years working with women around the world. This book is an urgent manifesto for an equal society where women are valued and recognized in all spheres of life. Most of all, it is a call for unity, inclusion and connection. We need this message more than ever.” — Malala Yousafzai "Melinda Gates's book is a lesson in listening. A powerful, poignant, and ultimately humble call to arms." — Tara Westover, author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Educated A debut from Melinda Gates, a timely and necessary call to action for women's empowerment. “How can we summon a moment of lift for human beings – and especially for women? Because when you lift up women, you lift up humanity.” For the last twenty years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift a society up, you need to stop keeping women down. In this moving and compelling book, Melinda shares lessons she’s learned from the inspiring people she’s met during her work and travels around the world. As she writes in the introduction, “That is why I had to write this book—to share the stories of people who have given focus and urgency to my life. I want all of us to see ways we can lift women up where we live.” Melinda’s unforgettable narrative is backed by startling data as she presents the issues that most need our attention—from child marriage to lack of access to contraceptives to gender inequity in the workplace. And, for the first time, she writes about her personal life and the road to equality in her own marriage. Throughout, she shows how there has never been more opportunity to change the world—and ourselves. Writing with emotion, candor, and grace, she introduces us to remarkable women and shows the power of connecting with one another. When we lift others up, they lift us up, too.
Bono
Musician
Melinda Gates lead singer shock… Bono
Books from Bono

The Little Book of Judas

In 1992 a 400-page book of poetry was the number one seller in Ireland. This is a shorter version, with some damning new revelations from the eternal scapegoat and outcast. One of the most ambitious literary enterprises of the last century, 'The Boo
Bono
Musician
Early on in their career, Bono wrote impressionistic lyrics -- particularly on The Unforgettable Fire album -- and you could always sense that his words were informed by the fact that he was really well read and fascinated by all aspects of the arts. Much of Achtung Baby was apparently inspired by Brendan Kennelly's The Book of Judas.
Books from Bono

My Name Is Asher Lev

“A novel of finely articulated tragic power. . . . Little short of a work of genius.”—The New York Times Book Review Asher Lev is a Ladover Hasid who keeps kosher, prays three times a day and believes in the Ribbono Shel Olom, the Master of the Universe. Asher Lev is an artist who is compulsively driven to render the world he sees and feels, even when it leads him to blasphemy. In this stirring and often visionary novel, Chaim Potok traces Asher’s passage between these two identities, the one consecrated to God, the other subject only to the imagination. Asher Lev grows up in a cloistered Hasidic community in postwar Brooklyn, a world suffused by ritual and revolving around a charismatic Rebbe. But in time, his gift threatens to estrange him from that world and the parents he adores. As it follows his struggle, My Name Is Asher Lev becomes a luminous portrait of the artist, by turns heartbreaking and exultant, a modern classic.
Bono
Musician
The book like I am Aher Lev, I fall in love with the paintings and sculpture of Marc Chagall and I feel that that book is a character very like that, a religious person that thinks "oh I can't make images" and it's the only thing he wants to do.
Books from Bono

Let the Trumpet Sound

On April 4th, 1968 a shot rang out in the Memphis sky bringing to a close the life of the last great American hero, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jnr.Although known to most for the delivery of his 'I Have a Dream' address, which followed the peaceful march on Washington DC of 250,000 people, and as the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (at age thirty-five), King in his eleven years as elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organisation formed to provide new leadership to the then burgeoning civil rights movement, travelled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action.Let the Trumpet Sound is the detailed examination of this life, written by Stephen B. Oates, winner of the Robert E Kennedy Memorial Book Award and the Christopher Award.
Bono
Musician
And a Rolling Stone journalist, Jim Henke, who has believed in you more than anyone up to this point, hands you a book called Let the Trumpet Sound — which is the biography of Dr. King. And it just changes your life.
Books from Bono

Psalms

The Psalms show you how to relate to God as you pray your doubt, fears and anger. They show you how to respond to God in praise. Here you find the best place to explore who you are and what God means to you.
Bono
Musician
We read all kinds of things from Harry Potter to The Bible, the Eugene Peterson version of The Bible we read to our kids.
Books from Bono

From the Republic of Conscience

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was created in 1948 as a direct response to the inhumanity suffered worldwide throughout, and following, World War Two. In 2008, to celebrate the UDHR's 60th anniversary, Seán Love who was executive director of Amnesty International (Ireland) at the time, and author Roddy Doyle decided to celebrate this magnificent declaration, whilst also publicizing the document itself. Dealing with topics as outlined in the UDHR, the articles tackle the varied subjects of fair trials, prison, torture, war, refugees, but also, education, poverty, health, leisure, employment, and housing. Containing 30 articles with an introduction by Poet Laureate Seamus Heaney, this book is a special commemoration to the work of the UDHR and Amnesty International. In a modern twist, it also features a special 'My article' by popular fictional wealthy former schoolboy rugby player Ross O'Carroll-Kelly (created by journalist Paul Howard) adding to the contemporary worth of this collection. Contributors: Robert Ballagh Kevin Barry Maeve Binchy Mary Rose Binchy Dermot Bolger John Boyne Alan Clarke Eoin Colfer John Connolly Barrie Cooke Roddy Doyle Anne Enright Zlata Filipovic Jim Fitzpatrick Carlo Gébler Hugo Hamilton Seamus Heaney Dermot Healy Ann Marie Hourihane Tom Humphries Jennifer Johnston Neil Jordan Claire Kilroy Louis le Brocquy Brian Maguire Alice Maher Lara Marlowe Nick Miller Lia Mills Eugene McCabe Colum McCann Frank McCourt Gary Mitchell Éilís Ní Dhuibhne Ross O'Carroll-Kelly Joseph O'Connor Mick O'Dea Mark O'Halloran Glenn Patterson Vivienne Roche Amelia Stein Gerard Stembridge Colm Tóibín Irvine Welsh
Bono
Musician
As an activist, From the Republic of Conscience has been like a bible for me, something I return to and have returned to for as long as I can remember. Some of those phrases are like tattoos for me, worn very close to the heart.
Books from Bono

Electric Light

A powerful new collection by the bestselling translator of Beowulf.In the finland of perch, the fenland of alder, on airThat is water, on carpets of Bann stream, on holdIn the everything flows and steady go of the world.--from "Perch"Seamus Heaney's new collection travels widely in time and space, visiting the sites of the classical world and revisiting the poet's childhood: rural electrification and the light of ancient evenings are reconciled within the orbit of a single lifetime. This is a book about origins (not least, the origins of words) and oracles: the places where things start from, the ground of understanding -- whether in Arcadia or Anahorish, the sanctuary at Epidaurus or the Bann valley in County Derry.Electric Light ranges from short takes to conversation poems. The pre-Socratic wisdom that everything flows is held in tension with the elegizing of friends and fellow poets. These gifts of recollection renew the poet's calling to assign things their proper names; once again Heaney can be heard extending his word hoard and roll call in this, his eleventh collection.
Bono
Musician
In this past week I gave Seamus's book Electric Light to President Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia. She's currently obsessed with the efforts to bring electricity to her people so she could not believe it.
Books from Bono

The Chronicles of Narnia

The noble lion Aslan and the royal leaders of Narnia struggle against the magical forces of evil.
Bono
Musician
The 59-year-old Dubliner’s childhood consisted of Moby Dick and Narnia and many others. “I stole books. I’m probably not allowed to say that,” he laughed.
Books from Bono

Moby Dick

A literary classic that wasn't recognized for its merits until decades after its publication, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick tells the tale of a whaling ship and its crew, who are carried progressively further out to sea by the fiery Captain Ahab. Obsessed with killing the massive whale, which had previously bitten off Ahab's leg, the seasoned seafarer steers his ship to confront the creature, while the rest of the shipmates, including the young narrator, Ishmael, and the harpoon expert, Queequeg, must contend with their increasingly dire journey. The book invariably lands on any short list of the greatest American novels.
Bono
Musician
The 59-year-old Dubliner’s childhood consisted of Moby Dick and Narnia and many others. “I stole books. I’m probably not allowed to say that,” he laughed.
TV Shows from Bono

The Simpsons

Set in Springfield, the average American town, the show focuses on the antics and everyday adventures of the Simpson family; Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, as well as a virtual cast of thousands. Since the beginning, the series has been a pop culture icon, attracting hundreds of celebrities to guest star. The show has also made name for itself in its fearless satirical take on politics, media and American life in general.
Bono
Musician
Have you seen the Simpsons episode where they go back to their homes, American- Irish people they go back to Ireland in the old days. And there the prehistoric times and the Irish it turns out of invented computing they were a rocket that they're planning to launch and they're so advanced and they're all inventors. Then one head comes ahead of the laboratory desk and goes "I think I've invented something amazing, here it's called beer"- and they drink it. Then it cuts to six months later that rockets falling out of the sky, the computers have melted down and that explains the National cliche yeah.
TV Shows from Bono

Monty Python's Flying Circus

A British sketch comedy series with the shows being composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines.
Bono
Musician
We had a street gang that was very vivid — very surreal. We were fans of Monty Python. We’d put on performances in the city center of Dublin.
Music recommended by Bono
60 songs

60 Songs that Changed My Life

Recently, Bono has turned 60, so he compiled a list of 60 songs that were remarkable in different periods of his life.
Bono
Musician
Recently, Bono has turned 60, so he compiled a list of 60 songs that were remarkable in different periods of his life.
Music from Bono

Björk

Bono
Musician
Does anyone know the genius singer from Iceland called Björk? She’s really one of my absolute favorite singers.
Music from Bono

The Who

Bono
Musician
In the end, what is rock & roll? Rage is at the heart of it. Some great rock & roll tends to have that, which is why the Who were such a great band.
Music from Bono

Pearl Jam

Bono
Musician
Some great rock & roll tends to have that, which is why the Who were such a great band. Or Pearl Jam. Eddie has that rage.
Music from Bono

Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)

Bono
Musician
At least in my head, the reference is to one of my favorite Dylan songs, “Señor Señor.” In that song, he meets an angel and he, like, goes on this ride with him. I have always imagined it is the angel of death.
Music from Bono

The Last Song I'll Ever Sing

Bono
Musician
Gavin Friday, one of my friends from Cedarwood Road [in Dublin], has written one of my favorite songs. It is called “The Last Song I’ll Ever Sing,” about this character in Dublin, back when we were growing up, called the Diceman, who died at 42, five years after he was diagnosed with HIV.
Music from Bono

Cage The Elephant

Bono
Musician
The band that I liked at Coachella was Cage the Elephant. Their commitment to the performance really blew so much of the other stuff away. They really did own it in a way that few other artists did.
Music from Bono

David Bowie

Bono
Musician
Was David Bowie a big influence? Gigantic, the English Elvis. Bowie was much more responsible for the aesthetic of punk rock than he’s been given credit for, like, in fact, most interesting things in the Seventies and Eighties. I put his pictures up in my bedroom.
Music from Bono

Oh My Love - Remastered 2010

Bono
Musician
I remember John singing “Oh My Love.” It’s like a little hymn. It’s certainly a prayer of some kind — even if he was an atheist. “Oh, my love/For the first time in my life/My eyes can see/I see the wind/Oh, I see the trees/Everything is clear in our world.” For me it was like he was talking about the veil lifting off, the scales falling from the eyes. Seeing out the window with a new clarity that love brings you. I remember that feeling.
Music from Bono

Blowin' in the Wind

Bono
Musician
Imagine and Bob Dylan. “Blowin’ in the Wind” — all that stuff — and the folksy thing.
Goods from Bono

Guinness



Bono
Musician
FAVORITE IRISH FOOD Galway oysters and Guinness.