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. 

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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?  

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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 – [email protected]      

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And don’t forget to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 

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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… 

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 Get in touch:      

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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 – [email protected]     

📲 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. 

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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 – [email protected]       

📲 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   

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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 – [email protected] 

📲 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. 

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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 – [email protected]     

📲 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 

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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 – [email protected] 

📲 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 

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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 – [email protected]     

📲 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 

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