U2’s Bono released his memoir Surrender on Tuesday, which chronicles his journey from growing up in Dublin to fronting one of the world’s most iconic rock bands.

The introspective book is broken down into 40 different U2 songs, including 40 original drawings.

The 62-year-old artist, born Paul David Hewson, is a longtime humanitarian known for lending his voice to a variety of causes, including the fight against poverty and AIDS.

In his more than 500-page book, Bono details those ambitions, but also his development as a teenager stricken by tragedy – his mother died suddenly when he was 14 – and an account of his heart surgery in 2016.

He also goes into the intricacies and intricacies of songwriting and “the pseudo-religious part of being a rock star, how we weave the messianic into chaos.”

“U2’s music was never really rock ‘n’ roll,” he writes in the book. “Under its contemporary skin, it’s opera – big music, big emotions unleashed in the pop music of the day.”

The rocker is promoting the memoir with a 14-date book tour called Stories of Surrender, which kicks off this week in New York and includes stops in Chicago, London, Berlin, Paris, Madrid and, of course, Dublin.

“When I started writing this book, I was hoping to draw in detail what I had previously only sketched in song,” Bono said in a statement when the book’s release was announced earlier this year.

“Devotion is a word full of meaning to me. Growing up fists (musically speaking) raised in Ireland in the 70’s it wasn’t a natural concept,” he continued. “I still struggle with that most humiliating of commands. In the band, in my marriage, in my faith, in my life as an activist.”

“Surrender is the story of a pilgrim’s lack of progress… with a ton of fun along the way.”