Service95 Book Club With Dua Lipa

From the archives this month, we bring you Dua’s conversation with Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on her multi award-winning novel Half Of A Yellow Sun from August 2023.   Dua says: “The story takes place in 1960s Nigeria, both before and during the Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War. If this is a period of history you are not familiar with, don’t worry, you are not alone. Chimamanda skilfully balances truth and fiction, giving a gripping sense of what was at stake for those who lived through the war and granting this travesty the attention it deserves.”  Together, Dua and Chimamanda explore the cast of characters, delving into themes of class, colonialism, politics and conflict. They also discuss how the novel’s parallel love stories – between Olanna and Odenigbo, and Kainene and Richard – remind us that love, jealousy, infidelity and forgiveness are as present in war as they are in peace.  Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble  Join the club:  📩 Email us your thoughts – books@service95.com  📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for more author interviews  📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – and be the first to discover Dua’s next pick – at service95.com  And don’t forget to hit ‘subscribe’ wherever you get your podcasts  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of the Service95 Book Club With Dua Lipa, she passes the mic to members of our community, inviting them to ask Roxane Gay, author of Dua’s Monthly Read for March, Bad Feminist, the questions they’ve always wanted to know.   Roxane talks about the writers who shaped her, how she protects her mental health when her work puts her in the crosshairs and why firm boundaries make honest writing possible. Perhaps most importantly, Roxane answers one of the weightier questions of our time: can literature ignite a revolution?   Get in touch:        📩 Email us – books@service95.com        📲 Follow @service95bookclub and @service95 on Instagram for updates        📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at service95.com         And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the March edition of the Service95 Book Club’s Monthly Read, Dua Lipa sits down with one of the most prominent feminist voices of this generation, Roxane Gay, to discuss her widely celebrated book of essays, Bad Feminist.  In this exclusive video, Roxane Gay reads an essay from the book, Peculiar Benefits. “It’s an essay I wrote when I was trying to think through my relationship to privilege. And how, at times, people are often reluctant to claim privilege, because they are marginalised in other areas of their life,”says Roxane.    Plus, if you haven’t already, be sure to watch Dua and Roxane’s full conversation, which is available to watch now...  Get in touch:  📩 Email us – books@service95.com       📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates       📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com  And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For March’s Monthly Read – and in time for International Women’s Day – we are thrilled to be featuring Bad Feminist by American writer, professor, editor and social commentator Roxane Gay.  In this podcast episode, Dua picks some of her favourite essays from Roxane’s 2014 collection, which spans everything from pop culture and politics to race, body image, sexual violence and the complicated expectations placed on women. The pair unpack how the landscape of feminism has shifted in today’s climate but also (and perhaps more importantly) how so much of Roxane’s commentary feels just as relevant today as it did when she first wrote it:  “One of the saddest things about Bad Feminist is most of the essays are still timely.”  Please be warned, this episode is heavy, with discussions of child sexual violence and rape. But it is an incredibly important conversation, confronting today’s relentless news cycles: from the ongoing uncovering of the Epstein files to the wider state of global media reporting and the ways in which coverage of violence against women continues to fall devastatingly short.  There are also lighter moments, where Dua and Roxane bond over their shared love of book clubs. They reflect on the joy that building a community around books brings them – and especially the opportunity to spotlight and uplift writers.  Make sure to watch and listen to one of the greatest voices of contemporary feminism give her take on the world today, the work that still needs to be done to improve the realities for women around the world and how, among all of this incredible work, she still finds time to fit in a game of Scrabble every day…  Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble   Get in touch:       📩 Email us – books@service95.com       📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates       📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com       And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Regular listeners of the Service95 Book Club podcast know, as well as our new monthly read author interviews, we love revisiting some of Dua’s most memorable conversations. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner is such a universal mother-daughter story, it will always deserve a second, third, even fourth read – making this illuminating conversation between Dua and Michelle from April 2024 worthy of a second, third, even fourth listen. Some of you may already know Michelle as the uber-cool singer and guitarist of the American cult indie band Japanese Breakfast. Here, she also proves herself to be a first-class memoirist, writing with raw honesty about her teenage relationship with her Korean mother and how recreating the traditional dishes her mother used to make helped her process her grief following her death from cancer. Ultimately, it’s a story about love, something everyone can relate to. Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble Get in touch:      📩 Email us – books@service95.com      📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates      📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com      And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jean-Baptiste Del Amo joins Dua for this special Service95 Book Club episode and answers questions from our Service95 community.  In this episode, he reflects on the emotion he most wants readers to confront in The Son of Man, and why discomfort can open the door to deeper understanding. How does he portray brutality without crossing into excess? Where is the line between honesty and spectacle?   The conversation also explores fate and free will. Are his characters trapped in cycles shaped by history, family and violence, or do they have the power to choose differently? How much of our lives is inherited – and how much is ours to reclaim?  Jean-Baptiste also offers insight into his creative process: how he knows when a novel is finished, when to stop revising, and which writers have influenced his voice the most. Don’t miss it.  Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble     Get in touch:        📩 Email us – books@service95.com        📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates        📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com        And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This month on the Service95 Book Club With Dua Lipa podcast, Dua sits down with French author Jean-Baptiste Del Amo to discuss his novel The Son of Man. A dark and unsettling psychological thriller, the book explores themes of inherited violence, patriarchy, masculinity and love. As Dua puts it: “I have to give a trigger warning - this book is dark, even for me!”  In a Service95 exclusive, Jean-Baptiste reads a powerful excerpt from the novel, in which the father figure, one of the book’s three protagonists, speaks to his son about his own dark understanding of love, loyalty and betrayal.  Whether or not you’ve read The Son of Man yet, this reading offers insight into the emotional and psychological forces driving the story. It also showcases Jean-Baptiste’s evocative writing style, from his depiction of the intensity of nature to the looming mountains of the French Pyrenees, where much of the novel is set.  Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble  Get in touch:  📩 Email us – books@service95.com  📲 Follow @service95bookclub and @service95 Instagram for updates  📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at https://service95.com    And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This month, Dua sits down with acclaimed French novelist Jean-Baptiste Del Amo to discuss his haunting novel The Son Of Man – a tense, unsettling exploration of masculinity, patriarchy, and the cycles of violence passed from father to son. Set largely in an isolated mountain house in rural France, the novel follows a family upended by the sudden return of a father whose past trauma slowly reveals itself in devastating ways. “This is a dark book, even by my standards,” Dua says. “And yet, there’s also real beauty here.” During the interview, Jean-Baptiste tells Dua why he wanted The Son of Man “to talk about all the fathers and all the sons,” and how he used the narrative to confront how violence is learned, inherited, and repeated. He also speaks of his commitment to writing characters who are rarely centred in French literature, drawing on his background in social work to tell these kinds of stories. Together, Dua and Jean-Baptiste delve into how the novel’s claustrophobic structure draws you into the story, the author’s decision to focus on just three central characters, and the way small, visceral details signal the father’s unpredictable energy.  As their conversation unfolds, they reflect on the emotional complexity of the novel’s title and its relevance in today’s world. Against the backdrop of ongoing global conversations about male violence, The Son Of Man asks urgent questions about trauma, responsibility, and whether it’s possible to break inherited chains of behaviour. Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble  Get in touch:      📩 Email us – books@service95.com      📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates      📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com      And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Regular listeners of the Service95 Book Club podcast know, as well as our new monthly read author interviews, we love revisiting some of Dua’s most memorable conversations — and this is a firm favourite.  This time from the archive, we’re diving back into Dua’s conversation with George Saunders about his experimental novel Lincoln In The Bardo, Dua’s Monthly Read for October 2024. Set in the cemetery where President Abraham Lincoln is mourning his young son Willie, it’s a story of intense personal grief, told against a backdrop of the American Civil War.   Dua and George discuss how he told such an unforgettable story through the eyes of a group of bickering ghosts, and explore the concept of the Bardo, a transitional state between life and death. Together, they read a poignant extract from the book. It’s a glimpse into the mind of one of today’s most compassionate writers — and not one to miss.   Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble Get in touch:  📩 Email us – books@service95.com  📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates  📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com  And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mark Ronson and Dua Lipa come together for a live recording of the Service95 Book Club at New York City’s legendary Hotel Chelsea.  In this episode, they respond to your questions from the Service95 Book Club community, diving into the allure of reading, curiosity, and the city after dark. What draws us to intense, shadowy novels? If they could bring back one long-lost NYC institution, which would it be? How do they navigate the endless stream of book recommendations when choosing their next read? And what truths does the night reveal that daylight often conceals?  Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble  Get in touch:      📩 Email us – books@service95.com      📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates      📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com      And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This month on the Service95 Book Club podcast, Dua sits down with producer and DJ Mark Ronson to discuss his memoir Night People – a candid look at the music, obsession, and late-night worlds that shaped him long before success felt secure. In a Service95 exclusive, Mark reads an excerpt from Night People that revisits a formative early lesson in ambition. The passage recalls a moment when, desperate to get a foot in the door, he sells out his best friend Sean Lennon without his knowing, securing a slot for his band at the New Music Seminar. It’s a story driven by hunger, insecurity, and hard-earned self-awareness. It’s a revealing snapshot of why Night People stays with you – not because it smooths over mistakes, but because it faces them head on. Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble  Get in touch:      📩 Email us – books@service95.com      📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates      📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com      And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This month, for the Service95 Book Club, Dua Lipa speaks with producer, songwriter and DJ Mark Ronson about his memoir Night People: How To Be A DJ in 90s New York City. Part cultural history and part personal reckoning, the book traces Mark’s formative years between London and New York, and how his immersion into NYC nightlife ultimately shaped the 90s DJ scene in the city. Set in 1990s New York, Night People captures the clubs, characters, and contradictions that shaped Mark’s creative life. He reflects on the idea of “night people,” shaped by his unconventional upbringing and his parents’ nocturnal lifestyle, and how DJing became both an escape and a source of control, validation, and belonging. Written with candour, the memoir explores ambition, missteps, and the risks involved in pushing musical boundaries — including a defining moment when Mark challenged convention by dropping rock music into a hip-hop crowd. Ultimately, Night People is a story about devotion to music, craft, and the communities built in dark rooms.  Get in touch:      📩 Email us – books@service95.com      📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates      📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com      And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Regular listeners of the Service95 Book Club podcast will know that, alongside our new monthly author interviews, we love returning to some of Dua’s most powerful conversations from the past two and a half years. This time from the archive, Dua revisits her discussion with Brit Bennett, author of Service95 Book Club’s November Monthly Read for 2023, The Vanishing Half. The novel opens up profound questions about identity, class, and the legacies that echo across generations – including perhaps the most challenging question of all: what even constitutes race? The Vanishing Half follows the Vignes twins, who grow up in a small Southern Black community obsessed with skin tone. As they come of age, their lives split in radically different directions: one sister returns home to raise her dark-skinned daughter, while the other chooses to pass as white, building a life far removed from her past – even from her own family. As their daughters’ lives eventually intersect, Brit weaves a layered exploration of identity, inheritance, and the cost of reinvention across generations. In this episode, Dua and Brit talk about the nuances of self-invention, the emotional cost of secrecy, and the ways in which family history can shape – and sometimes distort – who we become. Together, they reflect on the complexities of belonging, the fragility of personal truth, and the choices that define our lives. Don’t miss it. Get in touch:     📩 Email us – books@service95.com     📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates     📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com     And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This month on the Service95 Book Club podcast, Dua sits down with Norwegian author Ingvild Rishøi to discuss her moving novel Brightly Shining – Dua’s Monthly Read for December – a story shaped by love, chaos, and the stubborn hope that gets a child through tough times.   In a Service95 exclusive, Ingvild reads a passage that captures the novel’s intimate focus on a family stuck in a familiar loop of crisis and shaky fresh starts. We see a dad trying to pull himself together and two daughters who’ve learned how to handle responsibility, exhaustion, and a cautious kind of optimism.    It’s a little taste of why Brightly Shining stays with you – not because it looks away from hardship, but because it brings out the fragile hope that keeps shining through it.   Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble  Get in touch:     📩 Email us – books@service95.com     📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates     📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com     And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This month, for the Service95 Book Club, Dua Lipa speaks with Norwegian author Ingvild Rishøi about Brightly Shining, a contemporary reimagining of The Little Match Girl. The novel follows two young sisters and their alcoholic father, blending social realism with subtle magic to explore poverty, hope, and the emotional complexities of the holiday season. Told through the perspective of 10-year-old Ronja, the story highlights the resilience of children navigating instability, the blurred lines between truth and denial within families affected by addiction, and the differing ways siblings cope with responsibility and hope. By weaving Norway’s most iconic Christmas tale into a modern setting, Rishøi creates a narrative that feels both timeless and urgently relevant – a compassionate portrait of childhood survival and imagination. Warning: Contains spoilers! Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble  Get in touch:     📩 Email us – books@service95.com     📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates     📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com     And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Regular listeners of the Service95 Book Club podcast will have spotted that, as well as our new monthly author interviews, we love diving back into some of Dua’s most memorable conversations from the past two years – and this one is too good to miss.  This time from the archive, Dua sits down with legendary musician, poet and writer Patti Smith to talk about Just Kids – her award-winning memoir and Dua’s Monthly Read from September 2023. A tender portrait of her bond with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, Just Kids captures the raw electricity of New York in the ’60s and ’70s and the formative years that shaped two extraordinary artists. In this episode, the two explore how Patti began shaping the story that would become Just Kids and the role of devotion and creative kinship in her early life. Together, they reflect on the risks and revelations of youth, the power of choosing your own path, and the way memory can become its own kind of art. It’s an emotional, intimate discussion about love, loss, and the enduring legacy of art – and one that will stay with you long after listening. Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble  Get in touch:     📩 Email us – books@service95.com     📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates     📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com     And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special episode, we sit down with legendary author Margaret Atwood, whose groundbreaking novel The Handmaid’s Tale is Dua’s Monthly Read for November.  From what comes first – character, place, or premise – to how she handles challenging emotions in her writing, Margaret answers your questions across her extraordinary catalogue. She reflects on the rhythm and sound of her prose, the moments that shift the course of her stories, and responds to suggestions that she can predict the future.  Plus, she considers the parallels between Serena Joy and the modern Tradwife movement.  If you’ve ever wondered about Margaret’s writing process, this conversation is a must-listen.  Buy The Handmaid’s Tale at ⁠Bookshop.org⁠, ⁠Waterstones⁠, and ⁠Barnes & Noble⁠    Get in touch:     📩 Email us – ⁠books@service95.com⁠     📲 Follow ⁠@service95bookclub⁠ on Instagram for updates     📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at ⁠www.service95.com⁠     And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special bonus episode of Dua’s Monthly Read for November, we sit down with acclaimed actor Elisabeth Moss, who brings June Osborne – better known as Offred – to life in the Emmy-winning television adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale.  Elisabeth opens up about the first time she read Margaret Atwood’s iconic novel, what it was like meeting the author herself, and how both moments shaped her portrayal of one of contemporary fiction’s most iconic heroines.  She also delves into the evolution of the handmaid’s costumes and how designer Ane Crabtree helped transform Margaret’s vision into one of the most powerful visual symbols of our time, representing resistance, power, and solidarity – both on and off the screen.  Finally, she shares her thoughts on the enduring cultural impact of the novel and why Margaret’s story continues to resonate so strongly in today’s world.  Buy The Handmaid’s Tale at Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble    Get in touch:     📩 Email us – books@service95.com     📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates     📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com     And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dua sits down with literary icon Margaret Atwood to discuss The Handmaid’s Tale – Dua’s Monthly Read for November – alongside Margaret’s new memoir, Book Of Lives. In her deeply personal book, Margaret revisits the people, places, and ideas that have shaped her writing, offering a rare glimpse into the imagination behind her most enduring creations.   In a Service95 exclusive, Margaret reads a passage from Book Of Lives, which recounts how she arrived at the name Offred – the protagonist of The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s an illuminating moment from Book Of Lives, revealing how language, history, and power intertwine in Margaret’s world.   Buy The Handmaid’s Tale at Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble    Buy Book Of Lives at Bookshop.org, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble  Get in touch:     📩 Email us – books@service95.com     📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates     📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com     And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This month, Dua sits down with literary icon Margaret Atwood to discuss her groundbreaking novel The Handmaid’s Tale – a dystopian classic that continues to resonate decades after its 1985 publication. Set in a totalitarian society where women are stripped of their rights and forced into reproductive servitude, the novel explores themes of power, control, and resistance through the eyes of its protagonist, Offred.  Margaret reflects on how her experiences in Cold War-era East Berlin, the rise of the religious right, her reading of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and her studies of the Salem witch trials all helped shape the world of Gilead. Dua and Margaret also delve into the significance behind Offred’s name and its deeper meaning.  As the political landscape continues to shift, Margaret resists making definitive predictions about the future. “You can’t know your legacy,” she says, “because you don’t know how the context is going to change.”  Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble   Get in touch:    📩 Email us – books@service95.com    📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates    📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – introduced each month by Dua – at www.service95.com    And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices