Service95 Book Club With Dua Lipa

This month on the Service95 Book Club podcast, Dua sits down with producer and DJ Mark Ronson to discuss his memoir Night People – a candid look at the music, obsession, and late-night worlds that shaped him long before success felt secure. In a Service95 exclusive, Mark reads an excerpt from Night People that revisits a formative early lesson in ambition. The passage recalls a moment when, desperate to get a foot in the door, he sells out his best friend Sean Lennon without his knowing, securing a slot for his band at the New Music Seminar. It’s a story driven by hunger, insecurity, and hard-earned self-awareness. It’s a revealing snapshot of why Night People stays with you – not because it smooths over mistakes, but because it faces them head on. 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, 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 – [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

Regular listeners of the Service95 Book Club podcast will know that, alongside our new monthly author interviews, we love returning to some of Dua’s most powerful conversations from the past two and a half years. This time from the archive, Dua revisits her discussion with Brit Bennett, author of Service95 Book Club’s November Monthly Read for 2023, The Vanishing Half. The novel opens up profound questions about identity, class, and the legacies that echo across generations – including perhaps the most challenging question of all: what even constitutes race? The Vanishing Half follows the Vignes twins, who grow up in a small Southern Black community obsessed with skin tone. As they come of age, their lives split in radically different directions: one sister returns home to raise her dark-skinned daughter, while the other chooses to pass as white, building a life far removed from her past – even from her own family. As their daughters’ lives eventually intersect, Brit weaves a layered exploration of identity, inheritance, and the cost of reinvention across generations. In this episode, Dua and Brit talk about the nuances of self-invention, the emotional cost of secrecy, and the ways in which family history can shape – and sometimes distort – who we become. Together, they reflect on the complexities of belonging, the fragility of personal truth, and the choices that define our lives. Don’t miss it. 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 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 – [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, for the Service95 Book Club, Dua Lipa speaks with Norwegian author Ingvild Rishøi about Brightly Shining, a contemporary reimagining of The Little Match Girl. The novel follows two young sisters and their alcoholic father, blending social realism with subtle magic to explore poverty, hope, and the emotional complexities of the holiday season. Told through the perspective of 10-year-old Ronja, the story highlights the resilience of children navigating instability, the blurred lines between truth and denial within families affected by addiction, and the differing ways siblings cope with responsibility and hope. By weaving Norway’s most iconic Christmas tale into a modern setting, Rishøi creates a narrative that feels both timeless and urgently relevant – a compassionate portrait of childhood survival and imagination. Warning: Contains spoilers! 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