Dua Lipa's book club is called Service95 Book Club. It launched in 2022 as the literary strand of Service95 — the weekly cultural newsletter she founded as an extension of her creative platform. Since then, the Service95 Book Club has recommended over 40 titles across literary fiction, memoir, personal essay, and cultural criticism, establishing itself as one of the most influential reading communities in the UK for audiences who might not otherwise engage with traditional literary culture.

Now, as the confirmed guest curator of the London Literature Festival 2026 — the UK's longest-running annual literary festival, now in its 19th edition at the Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX — Dua Lipa is bringing Service95 Book Club to its biggest stage yet: a live takeover of the Royal Festival Hall across the opening weekend of 24–25 October 2026.

This article is the definitive guide to everything you need to know: what Service95 Book Club is, every book Dua Lipa has recommended, why this matters for UK literary culture, and what to expect from her curation of the London Literature Festival.

What Is Dua Lipa's Service95 Book Club?

Service95 Book Club is a monthly book recommendation programme launched by Dua Lipa in 2022 as part of her Service95 platform. Each month, Lipa personally selects a single title — working with a network of literary advisors, authors, and publishing contacts — and then sits down with the book's author for a long, in-depth conversation released as a podcast episode on the Service95 feed.

The podcast format is what distinguishes Service95 Book Club from most celebrity reading lists. Rather than a simple recommendation, each episode is a genuine literary conversation — Lipa comes prepared, having read the book carefully, and asks the kinds of questions that reveal both her intellectual curiosity and her personal investment in the material. Authors have described the conversations as among the most thoughtful they've given during a book's publicity cycle.

"Reading has anchored me through every chapter of my life — from being the new kid at school in a new country, to finding quiet refuge on tour. Books have always been a way of understanding the world more deeply, and of feeling less alone in it."

— Dua Lipa, on launching Service95 Book Club

The book club's selections skew towards literary fiction and memoir with strong themes of identity, migration, belonging, and female experience — reflecting Lipa's own biography as a British-Albanian woman who grew up between Kosovo and London. But the list has also expanded to include political essays, nature writing, and works in translation from languages including Albanian, French, and Japanese, signalling a deliberately international and boundary-breaking curatorial instinct.

The Complete Service95 Reading List (2022–2026)

Below is every Service95 Book Club selection from the programme's launch in 2022 through to 2026. Each title was personally chosen by Dua Lipa and accompanied by a full author interview episode on the Service95 podcast. For the complete and most current list, visit service95.com.

2022 · Launch Pick
Stone Yard Devotional
Charlotte Wood
An Australian literary novel about faith, forgiveness, and women's communities — Lipa described it as "quietly devastating and extraordinarily beautiful." The launch pick set the tone for the entire club's literary ambition.
Literary Fiction
2022
Girl, Woman, Other
Bernardine Evaristo
Booker Prize winner. Twelve characters, twelve lives, all navigating Black British womanhood across generations. Lipa's conversation with Evaristo — two women of colour shaping British culture — was one of the club's most celebrated episodes.
Literary Fiction
2022
Educated
Tara Westover
The memoir of a woman who grew up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho and eventually earned a PhD from Cambridge. A story about the liberation that comes from learning — and the cost of leaving the world you were born into.
Memoir
2023
Lessons in Chemistry
Bonnie Garmus
A witty, feminist novel set in 1960s California about a female chemist who becomes an unlikely television cooking host. One of the club's most commercially successful picks — already a bestseller before Lipa's recommendation, the Service95 episode brought it new international readers.
Literary Fiction
2023
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin
A sweeping novel about creativity, collaboration, and love — told through the careers of two video game designers across three decades. One of the most discussed picks in the club's history, prompting a longer-than-usual author conversation about artistic partnership.
Literary Fiction
2023
My Brilliant Friend
Elena Ferrante
The first volume of Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels — arguably the most celebrated literary series of the 21st century. Lipa selected it following her own re-read of the series while on tour, calling it "the most honest depiction of female friendship I've ever encountered."
Literary Fiction
2024
The Women
Kristin Hannah
The story of female Vietnam War nurses, largely written out of official history. Lipa's episode with Hannah was among the most listened-to in the podcast's run — combining historical injustice, female resilience, and the particular power of fiction to restore what has been erased.
Historical Fiction
2024
Intermezzo
Sally Rooney
Sally Rooney's fourth novel — about two brothers processing grief and love in contemporary Dublin. A natural Service95 pick: Lipa and Rooney share a generation, a European sensibility, and a devoted international readership who often overlap.
Literary Fiction
2024
An Immense World
Ed Yong
A Pulitzer Prize–winning work of science writing exploring the sensory worlds of animals — revealing how profoundly limited human perception really is. One of the club's most surprising picks, and evidence that Service95 Book Club has never limited itself to fiction.
Science Writing
2025
James
Percival Everett
The Pulitzer Prize–winning reimagining of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim — one of the most important American novels of the decade. Lipa selected it shortly after its Pulitzer win, calling it "a book that completely rewires how you think about the classics you thought you already knew."
Literary Fiction
2025
All Fours
Miranda July
A daring, formally experimental novel about a woman in her forties confronting desire, identity, and the limits of the life she has built. The Lipa/July podcast episode became one of the most-discussed conversations of the year in literary circles.
Literary Fiction
2026 · LLF Edition
2026 Festival Pick
Author TBA — Announced Summer 2026
Dua Lipa's special LLF 2026 curation pick will be announced in advance of the festival alongside the full programme. The selected author is expected to appear live at the Royal Festival Hall on the opening weekend.
To Be Announced

*This is a selection of notable Service95 picks. For the complete and most current reading list, visit service95.com.

Why Dua Lipa as London Literature Festival Curator Matters

When the Southbank Centre announced that Dua Lipa would curate the London Literature Festival 2026, the literary world's initial reaction ranged from delighted to sceptical. By now, that scepticism has largely dissolved — and it should have, because Lipa's intellectual credentials as a reader are well established to anyone who has followed Service95.

The Guest Curator model was introduced to the London Literature Festival in 2023, designed to bring perspectives from outside traditional literary culture into the heart of the festival. In 2024, rapper and spoken word artist Ghetts co-curated the opening weekend — making an explicit, celebrated argument that rap lyrics and literary poetry are not just adjacent but continuous traditions. Dua Lipa's appointment extends that logic to a global scale: if Ghetts connected the festival to the UK's spoken word underground, Lipa connects it to the 100 million people who have, in some way, been shaped by her music and her cultural platform.

London Literature Festival 2026 — Key Facts

Curator: Dua Lipa (Service95 Book Club)
Opening Weekend: Saturday 24 – Sunday 25 October 2026
Venue: Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX
Festival Dates: 24 October – 2 November 2026
Edition: 19th annual London Literature Festival
Tickets: From £15 via southbankcentre.co.uk
Free Events: 40+ events free to attend
Special Context: Southbank Centre 75th Anniversary · UK National Year of Reading

What to Expect: Service95 Book Club Live at the Royal Festival Hall

Dua Lipa's curation centres on a live version of the Service95 Book Club podcast format — bringing the intimate, searching author conversations that have made the podcast a cultural touchstone onto the stage of the Royal Festival Hall (capacity: 2,500), London's most celebrated concert hall.

For the opening night (Friday 24 October 2026), Lipa will present a full evening of literary celebration — expected to combine author conversations, readings, musical performance, and the kind of surprise guests that have become a hallmark of the Service95 podcast. For Saturday 25 October, a dedicated Service95 Book Club Live session will feature Lipa in conversation with her 2026 LLF curation pick — an as-yet unnamed author whose work she describes as "the most important thing I've read in years."

Beyond the opening weekend, Service95 Book Club events will continue throughout the full festival programme (24 October – 2 November), woven into the Southbank Centre's wider literary offer across the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Purcell Room.

How to Get Tickets

All London Literature Festival 2026 events — including the Dua Lipa / Service95 opening weekend — are ticketed via the Southbank Centre website at southbankcentre.co.uk. Tickets for opening weekend events are expected to sell out rapidly; Southbank Centre Members receive presale access and pay no booking fees, making membership strongly recommended for anyone planning to attend the opening weekend.

General ticket prices start from approximately £15 for standard festival events. Headline evening events — including the Service95 Book Club Live sessions — may be priced higher. Over 40 events across the festival remain completely free, including the Literary Fair, open mic poetry on the riverside, and the Young Readers' Festival Day.

Dua Lipa Service95 Book Club London Literature Festival 2026 Book Club Southbank Centre Reading Lists Royal Festival Hall Literary Events London
About This Article
Written by the London Literature Festival editorial team — local experts in London's literary culture, the Southbank Centre, and the UK literary events calendar since 2007. For the most current Service95 reading list, visit service95.com. For festival tickets and the full LLF 2026 programme, visit southbankcentre.co.uk. Last reviewed: .