BONO: In Conversation with Michka Assayas

U2 vocalist, celebrity activist and one of the world's most outsized rock stars, Bono symbolically takes off his habitual shades to reveal the relatively normal guy behind the flashy (and occasionally bombastic) public persona in this series of wide-ranging conversations. Readers familiar with the Irish singer won't be surprised that he comes off as both earnest and quick minded, but the book's long-form q&a format also reveals an acerbic sense of humor and genuine humility. Topics shift and flow in a fairly nonlinear fashion; anecdotes jump around from 1979 to 1998, from Dublin to Africa, from music to father-son relationships. Presuming that most readers are intimate with U2's history and discography, interviewer Assayas gives little background information other than the dates and location of each discussion. The lack of context or clear chronology is at times frustrating, but Assayas, a French journalist and longtime friend of the group, compensates by steering the conversations into difficult territory: politics, religion and the personal dynamics of a successful rock band. This is sure to appeal to completists; more casual fans may snap it up after seeing one of U2's forthcoming concerts for their album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb . Agent, Ed Victor. (Apr. 21)