Dua Lipa launches her own book club
The Levitating singer will personally choose the tales read by members of the Service95
Book Club, the latest branch of her Service95 platform, with her selections designed to tell powerful stories across different genres, both fiction and non-fiction, and represent diverse global voices.
She made the announcement on her Instagram page in her latest post, with a picture of her holding a book aloft and casually wearing a sequinned daisy-print string bikini, demonstrating precisely how to give intellectual appeal even while being a social media thirst trap.
The entertainer — the latest in a growing list of high-profile media personalities to endorse books, an activity spawned after Oprah began her book club in 1996 — said in a statement: “Reading a book is one of the most profound joys in life. Reading provides a form of escapism, a way to understand human connection and helps us navigate human relationships.
“Through the pages of a book, I can go places that I have never been and feel like I have lived there for a lifetime. But the true magic of a great book comes alive with sharing the experience, talking with friends, and swapping recommendations of what to read next.
“I can’t wait to do that with readers from every corner of the globe through the Service95 Book Club.”
The inaugural Book of the Month for June will be Shuggie Bain, and Dua will meet author Douglas Stuart at the Hay Festival in Wales on 3 June to talk about the novel for a special live-recorded episode of her ‘Dua Lipa: At Your Service’ podcast.
Shuggie Bain is a recent finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the 2020 Booker Prize, and tells the story of Shuggie, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher’s policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city’s notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.
Shuggie’s mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie’s guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good — her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamorous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion’s share of each week’s benefits — all the family has to live on — on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs. Agnes’s older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Shuggie is meanwhile struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realised that he is “no right,” a boy with a secret that all but him can see.
Author Stuart said: “I am thrilled that Shuggie Bain is the inaugural pick for the Service95 Book Club.
“I have so much respect for Dua Lipa and her artistry, and I really admire that she uses her platform to inspire readers, and to keep books at the centre of our cultural conversations.”
The Service95 Book Club will also offer members discussion guides, author Q+AS and reading lists, as well as other extras.