Service95 Book Club With Dua Lipa

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 to write and the unique rituals that shape his writing. Watch (or listen to) the full conversation to go deeper into Jerusalem, Dua Lipa’s April read for the Service95 Book Club. 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

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 village and centres on the anarchic Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron as he resists eviction from the woodland clearing he calls home. The conversation begins with the real figures and encounters that shaped the play’s characters, before turning to Jez’s instinctive approach to writing and the ideas that underpin Jerusalem. Together, they consider the play’s elusive staying power; as Jez puts it, it lingers like “a great song that you can never work out the meaning of”. Jerusalem is an exploration of belonging: who is permitted to remain, and who is forced out. 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 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

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, 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

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, 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

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

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 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

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