In a world of celebrity brands, Dua Lipa forged a new path when she launched Service95 in 2022. What began as a lifestyle newsletter has evolved into a digital publication with an editorial team, a podcast fronted by the singer herself and a globally successful book club.
Granted, the Grammy winner has also now entered the beauty space, launching a three-strong skincare line with Augustinus Bader. But outside of music, the book club remains her bread and butter. And now, she’s been announced as a curator at this year’s London Literature Festival.
Lipa is set to take over the Southbank Centre on the opening weekend (Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 October) of the festival, curating a line-up of established and debut authors. There will be a series of events running across the festival in collaboration with Service95, which she says will “celebrate the written and spoken word”.
Launched in June 2023, the first pick in the monthly Service95 Book Club was Douglas Stuart’s Booker Prize-winning novel Shuggie Bain. In the years since, she has hosted an eclectic roster of authors on her podcast, from Margaret Atwood to Michelle Zauner and Patrick Radden Keefe.
Her selections span memoirs, essay collections, fiction and more, with the monthly episodes featuring exclusive in-depth conversations with writers to illuminate your reading. While book clubs like Reece’s Book Club and Read with Jenna often focus on new releases, Lipa casts her net wider with classic tomes and cult books to provide plenty of TBR inspiration.
To mark the announcement of the literature festivals collaboration with Service95, here are five of Dua Lipa’s previous book club selections that prove she’s the queen of trendsetting literary taste.
‘Bad Feminist’ by Roxane Gay, published by Corsair
Roxane Gay’s seminal essay collection is Dua Lipa’s Service95 Book Club pick for March 2026. The writer joined the singer on the monthly podcast to discuss the landscape of feminism a decade on from the book's release, misogyny and the complicated expectations put on women. Roxane Gay’s collection of essays explores all the contradictions, nuances and difficulties of being a modern-day feminist – such as wanting independence but equally wanting to be taken care of, or loving rap music but being offended by misogynistic lyrics. At its heart is Gay’s profession to being a “bad feminist” and a “mess of contradictions”.
Buy now £9.92, Amazon.co.uk
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood, published by Vintage Publishing
Dua Lipa‘s November 2025 pick was Margaret Atwood’s groundbreaking dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, in light of the publication of the author’s memoir. On the podcast, they explored the novel’s themes of power, control and resistance, and how Atwood’s experience in Cold War era Berlin influenced the world of Gilead. They also touched on today’s political arena and the comparisons that can be drawn to Atwood’s fictional world.
Buy now £7, Amazon.co.uk
'Flesh' by David Szalay, published by Jonathan Cape
David Szalay’s portrait of masculinity, money, sex and chance, Flesh, won the Booker Prize in 2025 and was chosen as Service95’s October book club pick. The engrossing novel follows Istvan from an apartment complex in Hungary to the upper echelons of London high society. In the podcast conversation, Dua Lipa questions why Szalay chose such sparse prose and how he explored masculinity in the novel.
Buy now £14, Amazon.co.uk
'Small Boat' by Vincent Delecroix, published by HopeRoad
French philosopher Vincent Delecroix’s small but mighty book is just 122 pages. The novella is based on a real life tragedy, when an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants across the English Channel capsized in 2021, causing 27 people to drown. The book is told from the perspective of the French operator who took 14 distressed phone calls from one migrant in the boat, but failed to send help. In their podcast chat for the July 2025 Service95 Book Club pick, the author spoke about moral responsibility, empathy in a time of political chaos and his choice of choosing such an inhuman narrator.
Buy now £10.95, Amazon.co.uk
‘Crying in H Mart’ by Michelle Zauner, published by Knopf
Dua Lipa’s April 2024 pick was Crying in H Mart, which opens with Michelle Zauner’s viral New Yorker essay of the same name. Following the loss of her mother to cancer soon after the deaths of her grandmother and aunt, Zauner finds herself regularly going to H Mart, the Asian supermarket chain in the US, where every aisle is tinged with nostalgia. While Zauner states her book is a story about her mother, it’s just as much about her own life, grief and where it takes her.
Buy now £7.99, Amazon.co.uk
Discover more reading inspiration with our round-up of the best new book releases
