In this special episode, we sit down with award-winning author David Szalay, whose novel Flesh is Dua's Monthly Readfor October.

From the influence of his Hungarian roots to the spark that ignites his book ideas, David answers readers’ questions about the emotional, cultural, and intellectual threads that weave through his work.

If you’ve been moved, challenged, or intrigued by Flesh, this episode is a must-listen.

Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble 

Get in touch:

📩 Email us – [email protected]

📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for updates

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This month on the Service95 Book Club podcast, Dua is joined by award-winning author David Szalay to discuss his quietly powerful novel Flesh – selected as Dua’s Monthly Read for October. Told through a series of spare, intimate portraits, the novel captures moments of human vulnerability with a precision that feels deeply real. 

In a Service95 exclusive, David reads from a chapter set in Iraq, where the protagonist István and his fellow soldiers find themselves beside a hotel pool, suspended in the strange stillness of their return from war. There is no drama, no action – just silence, heat, and waiting. 

“The idea of the soldiers having this very boring journey back from Iraq at the end of their tour of duty there… the boring texture of returning… that seemed to me to unlock the strong flavour of reality,” David tells Dua in their conversation, recorded live at the New York Public Library, which is also available as a podcast here. 

It’s a powerful moment in Flesh, and a testament to the realism that threads through the entire novel. 
 

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’s Service95 Book Club episode comes to you live from the New York Public Library, in partnership with Spotify, recorded in September in front of an audience. Dua is joined by Booker-shortlisted writer David Szalay to discuss his astonishing new novel Flesh - a brilliantly spare and unsettling portrait of a man caught between desire, social classes, and fate. 

The story follows István from a bleak Hungarian housing estate to the upper echelons of London society. But David resists the hero’s arc: István is passive, pliable, often silent – a man seemingly buffeted by events rather than steering them. His life unfolds through abrupt leaps in time, leaving the reader to piece together the shadows between. 

In their conversation, Dua and David explore why he chose such pared-back prose, to what extent István exemplifies ‘a primative form of masculinity’, and how money, class, and power warp even our most intimate relationships. They touch on the book’s unresolved tensions, from István’s relationships with women and his stepson, to the existential loneliness that haunts every page. 

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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Service95 Book Club with Dua Lipa, a podcast dedicated to the books that stay with us – and the brilliant minds behind them.

As well as bringing you a brand-new episode every month, we’ll also be dipping into the archive of fascinating conversations Dua has had with authors over the past two years.

This time from the archive, Dua sits down with Nobel Prize-winning author Olga Tokarczuk to discuss her darkly humorous and deeply philosophical novel Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead – Dua's Monthly Read for January 2025. The story follows an eccentric woman in a remote Polish village as she investigates a string of mysterious deaths, raising urgent questions about justice, nature, and the unseen forces that govern our lives.

In this episode, Dua and Olga dive into the ethical dimensions of animal rights, astrology as a form of artistic expression, and the lasting influence of William Blake.

Buy the book at Bookshop.org, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, Fitzcarraldo Editions and Penguin Random House
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

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This month on the Service95 Book Club podcast, Dua is joined by acclaimed American author Percival Everett to discuss his genre-defying, fiercely satirical novel The Trees – selected as Dua’s Monthly Read for September. A Booker Prize finalist, the book investigates the legacy of racial violence in America through a story that is as chilling as it is darkly comic.

In a Service95 exclusive, Percival reads from the novel’s searing Chapter 64 – a passage that echoes with names of those brutally murdered by lynch mobs. Some are remembered. Some are listed only as “unknown male” or “unknown female”. One by one, line by line, Everett delivers a roll call of history’s brutality – transforming a single character’s obsession into a profound act of remembrance.

His reading underscores the novel’s emotional and political power, revealing how The Trees blends mystery, satire, and mourning into a story that cannot be ignored.

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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This month, Dua is joined by one of the most singular voices in American fiction – the acclaimed author Percival Everett whose novel The Trees was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. It’s not an understatement to say that Percival is having a moment – his most recent novel James won the 2024 National Book Award and the 2025 Pulitzer Prize, while American Fiction, the film adaptation of his novel Erasure, won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2024.

On the surface, The Trees is a murder mystery. But scratch deeper and it becomes a furious, funny, and fearless interrogation of racism, lynching, and America’s unfinished reckoning with its own past. Taking inspiration from the real-life story of Emmett Till, Percival uses dark comedy and genre subversion to create something bold and unforgettable.

Trigger Warning: Contains discussion of racial violence.

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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Service95 Book Club with Dua Lipa, a podcast dedicated to the books that stay with us – and the brilliant minds behind them.
As well as bringing you a brand-new episode every month, we’ll also be dipping into the archive of fascinating conversations Dua has had with authors over the past two years.

In this archive episode, Dua sits down with New York Times-bestselling author Emma Cline to talk about her haunting novel The Guest – a story of a young woman adrift in the Hamptons over one long summer, where tension shimmers below the surface.

Emma and Dua explore the art of writing characters you never fully trust, how social class and privilege shape invisible boundaries, why delusion can be its own kind of survival strategy, and the ambiguous ending that has left readers everywhere debating Alex’s fate.

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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This month on the Service95 Book Club podcast, Dua is joined by legendary Australian author Helen Garner to discuss her quietly devastating masterpiece, This House Of Grief. Selected as Dua’s Monthly Read for August, this true crime classic recounts the harrowing case of Robert Farquharson, a father accused of drowning his three young sons by driving them into a dam on Father’s Day.

In a Service95 exclusive, Helen reads the haunting opening pages of the book – a passage that sets the emotional tone for everything that follows. Her voice carries the weight of a story that has never left the Australian psyche, and her reflections throughout the episode explore the moral complexities of guilt, empathy, and writing about real human suffering.

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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it mean to truly bear witness – especially to something that defies comprehension? 

This month on the Service95 Book Club, Dua is joined by legendary Australian writer Helen Garner to discuss This House Of Grief – a haunting account of a father on trial for the murder of his three young sons. The book is part true crime, part literary reportage, and wholly unflinching. As Dua says, it has the pace of a thriller, but it also forces us to ask the most uncomfortable questions about love, justice, and the limits of empathy. 

Together, Dua and Helen reflect on the power of literature to confront our darkest instincts, and the courage it takes to look – and not look away. 

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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Service95 Book Club with Dua Lipa, a podcast dedicated to the books that stay with us – and the brilliant minds behind them. 

As well as bringing you a brand-new episode every month, we’ll also be dipping into the archive of fascinating conversations Dua has had with authors over the past two years. 

This time from the archive, Dua sits down with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hernan Diaz to talk about his bold and genre-defying novel Trust – a mind-bending story told through four interlocking narratives. 

In this episode, Hernan and Dua explore what it means to search for truth in a world of competing stories, how women have been systematically excluded from the history of money and power, and why silence can sometimes be more revealing than words.   

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. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices