Service95 Book Club With Dua Lipa

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian novelist renowned for Half of a Yellow Sun, reflects on the Biafran War and why she wrote the novel as an act of remembrance. She explores characters and the intertwining of love and conflict. Conversations touch on class, colonialism, women's wartime roles, storytelling choices, and language use in portraying history.

Roxane Gay, writer, professor, and cultural critic known for Bad Feminist, answers listener questions and reflects on writing. She discusses fear as a guide, setting firm boundaries to protect mental health, and the writers and mentors who shaped her. She also debates whether literature can spark collective action and the role of writers in civic life.

Roxane Gay, author, cultural critic, and professor, reads from Bad Feminist and reflects on privilege. She recounts trips to Haiti and how an American passport shaped her views. She defines different forms of privilege and wrestles with being both advantaged and marginalized. She challenges online privilege policing and urges listeners to start acknowledging relative privilege.

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

Michelle Zauner, singer-guitarist of Japanese Breakfast and memoirist, reflects on family, food and survival. She talks about how Korean groceries unlock memories. She discusses learning Korean, caregiving, and turning grief into writing. She also contrasts her music and author identities and describes adapting her memoir for film.

Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, French novelist best known for intense, lyrical fiction, answers reader questions. He discusses infusing melancholy into a thriller. He explains how to portray brutality without excess. He explores fate versus free will and whether characters can break inherited cycles. He also shares how he knows when a novel is finished and his literary influences.

Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, French novelist known for dark, intense fiction, reads from The Son of Man. He brings the luminous Pyrenean landscape to life. The reading focuses on a father’s silent monologue, a shooting lesson turned confession, and stark meditations on love, desire, betrayal and detachment.

Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, a French novelist and former social worker known for exploring violence and marginalized lives, discusses his tense novel The Son of Man. He talks about inherited violence, patriarchal cycles, and the father’s animalistic presence. Short chapters dissect time shifts, isolation in the mountains, unnamed characters, and how social work shapes his empathetic eye.

George Saunders, award-winning novelist known for Lincoln in the Bardo, talks about experimenting with form and writing through grief. He explains why he chose ghosts and a bardo-like afterlife, how the idea grew over decades, and how distinct voices and humor shape a mournful story. A lively, compassionate conversation about risk, craft, and finding light amid sorrow.

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