I have a bit of a hot and cold relationship with our big celebrity book clubs: Oprah, Reese and Jenna.
On one hand, anything that gets people into books is A-OK with me, and each of these women has a monthly megaphone that moves hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of books.
On the other hand, these clubs soak up a lot of the available oxygen when it comes to broad, cultural coverage of books, so when they choose books that are not going to lack for attention (such as Oprah Winfrey choosing a memoir by Beyoncé’s mom and Reese Witherspoon going with mega-selling author Emily Henry’s latest), it feels like a missed opportunity.
However, I have just been introduced to a celebrity book club for which I can declare my full enthusiasm, the Service95 Book Club of pop superstar Dua Lipa, which named Max Porter’s “Grief Is the Thing with Feathers” as its monthly read for April.
I will be honest. Dua Lipa is a name I’ve heard but I could not name any of her songs. I believe she is known for her “bangers,” to use a word that people who know Dua Lipa’s music probably don’t deploy anymore. That said, shuffling through an Apple Music playlist, there were several songs that had clearly passed across my personal radar, including a remix of “Cold Heart” featuring Elton John that blends in John’s classic “Rocket Man,” a song that I could sing every lyric to.
I do know “Grief Is the Thing with Feathers,” a book first published in the U.S. by indie publisher Greywolf in 2016. A slim, strange, 128-page marvel, “Grief Is the Thing with Feathers” is a powerful meditation that manages to capture the strange whipsaws of emotion that accompany a great loss.
It is an idiosyncratic choice because of the book’s nature, and the fact that it came out a decade ago. The big book clubs seek to make their monthly titles a capital-E event. Dua Lipa looks like someone who wants to share her specific love for specific books and is using the power of her celebrity platform to do so.
Like I say, I can get behind that. Previous book club choices I can get behind include Tommy Orange’s “There There” and Paul Murray’s “The Bee Sting,” and Nobel winner Olga Tokarczuk’s “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.”
Lest we think these are bids to put a patina of highbrow intellectualism over a global pop star, these choices are accompanied by author interviews conducted by Lipa that make it clear she has read these books and is eager to share how these reading experiences have influenced her views of the world.
Oprah and Jenna Bush Hager are excellent enthusiasts for the books they choose. They are readers, but Lipa appears to be someone you might come across in your graduate lit seminar and happily talk books with for hours.
I don’t want this to register as a surprise. I know nothing about Dua Lipa the person, and there’s nothing that says famous pop stars can’t be interested in literature. What is especially exciting about Lipa’s Service95 Book Club is that it’s part of a larger media project also touching on travel, fashion, and activism.
Books are presented as an entirely normal, expected part of a full and fulfilling life. Authors are regular people who write books the way Dua Lipa is a regular (though very glamorous) person who makes pop music hits.
Lipa’s lowkey, non-newsy approach to a book club is familiar and charming, and I look forward to what she has for May.
John Warner is the author of books including “More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.” You can find him at www.biblioracle.com.
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “Stone Yard Devotional” by Charlotte Wood
2. “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” by Brian Moore
3. “True Grit” by Charles Portis
4. “All Our Names” by Dinaw Mengestu
5. “Dream State” by Eric Puchner
— John S., Chicago
For John I’m recommending the jolt of Daniel Woodrell’s “Winter’s Bone.”
1. “Fresh Water for Flowers” by Valérie Perrin
2. “H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life” by Michel Houellebecq
3. “Old Man’s War” by John Scalzi
4. “The Days of Abandonment” by Elena Ferrante
5. “The Year Under the Machine” by Peter Danielsson
— Robert C., Rockford
This is a big swing, but if it connects, it’s a grand slam: “House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski
1. “The Intuitionist” by Colson Whitehead
2. “River of Books” by Donna Seaman
3. “Bronshtein in the Bronx” by Robert Littell
4. “The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne” by Ron Currie
5. “The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death” by Charlie Huston
— Joe F., Channahon, Illinois
Another big swing. I guess I’m feeling bold this week: “When We Cease to Understand the World” by Benjamin Labatut.
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.
