Service95 Book Club With Dua Lipa

From the archives this month: Dua’s February 2025 conversation with Irish author Paul Murray, on his novel The Bee Sting.  An epic family saga set in contemporary Ireland, the novel follows the Barnes family through financial collapse, fractured relationships and the secrets that have shaped their lives across generations.  Paul talks about growing up in 1990s Ireland, a country deeply influenced...

For the Service95 Book Club this month, Dua is joined by writer, poet, playwright and musician Kae Tempest to discuss his latest novel, Having Spent Life Seeking, which is Dua’s Monthly Read for June.  Together, Dua and Kae explore the novel’s core themes: forgiveness and atonement, the instability of home when both the person and the place have changed, and the difficult process of becoming fully...

From the archives this month, we revisit Dua’s conversation with Malorie Blackman, the former Children’s Laureate and author of the groundbreaking young adult series Noughts & Crosses.   The novel follows Callum and Sephy, childhood friends growing up on opposite sides of a violently segregated society, where the ruling Crosses hold power over the oppressed Noughts.   More than 20 years after its...

For her May Service95 Book Club interview, Dua Lipa is joined by one of Ireland’s most celebrated short story writers, Claire Keegan.  Together, they explore Keegan’s powerful read So Late In The Day: a sharp, unsettling portrait of a man whose lack of generosity towards his fiancée gradually reveals the often quiet yet destructive nature of modern misogyny.  Dua and Claire unpack the story’s subt...

From the archives this month, we bring you Dua’s conversation with Polish-German author Tomasz Jedrowski, author of Swimming In The Dark.    Set in 1980, it’s a story of first love between Ludwig and Janus, told against the backdrop of communist Poland as the regime starts to crumble.    This queer coming of age story explores a time and place where love, class and politics do not exist in isolati...

In this episode of the Service95 Book Club With Dua Lipa, we’re passing the mic back to you. Dua put your questions to Jez Butterworth about her April Monthly Read, Jerusalem – and here, he answers them.  Jez traces the play’s origins back to New Year’s Eve 2000, explains how it came to find its name and goes inside his writing process: what tends to come first, which scene he found most difficult...

For the April edition of the Service95 Book Club, Dua Lipa sits down with playwright Jez Butterworth to discuss his modern masterpiece, Jerusalem. If you’ve never read a play before, this is the place to start.  With its raw, visceral portrait of myth, rebellion and a nation wrestling with its own identity, it’s widely regarded as one of the greatest British plays of the 21st century.  In this spe...

For April, Dua has chosen Service95’s first play: Jerusalem by award-winning British playwright Jez Butterworth. He’s widely regarded as one of the leading voices in contemporary theatre – with this conversation with Dua showing exactly what that reputation is built on.  Here, Dua and Jez trace the creative forces behind Jerusalem, which unfolds across a single day in a fictional rural English vil...

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....

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 w...

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....

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 expec...

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...

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?  ...

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-Ba...

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...

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 cemet...

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...

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, desper...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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 an...

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 moment...