NEED TO KNOW
Dua Lipa opened up about her childhood love of readingThe pop star said that her parents instilled a passion for reading in her at an early ageShe’s continued her love of literature as the host of the Service95 Book Club
She might be best known for pop hits like “Dance the Night Away” and “Levitating,” but when she was a kid, Dua Lipa had her nose stuck in a good book.
The 29-year-old musician opened up about how her love of reading started at an early age in a recent profile for Harper’s Bazaar.
“It was such a big part of my childhood,” she told the magazine of reading as a kid. “There was a big bookshop. It was at the O2 Centre on Finchley Road in London, and there was a kids’ section.”
Lipa said her mother, Anesa, would spend her weekends sitting in the children’s section, “reading her books, and I would just spend all day in there reading my books. I think books allow us to slow down a little bit.”
Lipa’s paternal grandfather was a well-known historian in Kosovo and her parents also instilled a love of reading in the singer from an early age.
Dua Lipa shows off her Service95 Book Club pick.
Dua Lipa/Instagram
The Grammy winner visited a book club in a women’s prison in the U.K. as a part of the Booker Prize Foundation’s Books Unlocked program and shared that the experience had a profound impact on her.
“There was also one lady in there that I think about often, and she was about 52 years old or something, and she said, ‘Oh, had I maybe read books sooner in my life, maybe I wouldn’t be here, because reading books has really made me understand people and humans and emotions.’ Reading opens you up to the world. And it makes the world so much smaller,” Lipa explained.
The prison book club happened to be reading Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, the same book that was the first selection for Lipa’s Service95 Book Club.
Dua Lipa reads in a bikini on Instagram.
Dua Lipa/Instagram
Back in 2023, Lipa shared in a YouTube video about her prison visit, “I started a book club with Service95 just to get more people reading. I think we’re kind of losing a little bit of the love with libraries and picking up a good book and sharing that with people. And I want to keep that excitement alive and conversation going.”
Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, whom Lipa interviewed for her Service95 Podcast, also praised the singer for how she encourages literacy using her massive platform.
“I think Dua is approaching things in a very intellectual, very philosophical way. At the same time, she can be very glamorous and pretty and aspirational as well,” Lee told the magazine.