New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Dua Lipa's Service95 Book Club has shared details about April's Monthly Read: Grief Is The Thing With Feathers by Max Porter. The Service95 Book Club will provide exclusive content from Dua and Max throughout the month on service95.com and across socials.
On Grief Is The Thing With Feathers, Dua says, "Ever so occasionally, you pick up a book and it spins you around and turns you upside down. This is one of those books. In his debut novel, author Max Porter ripped up the rule book of what a novel should do and instead presents us with something so wild, so mind-bending and just so beautiful."
Dua adds, "It's the story of a young family devastated by grief when the boys' mother suddenly dies. As the weight of their grief threatens to sink them, a human-size crow arrives on their doorstep and moves in, announcing that he will stay until they no longer need him. Yes, you read that right - a giant talking crow. Is Crow here to help, or purely to cause chaos? Is he even real or a figment of their imagination? That's the question that carries through the book but, by the end, it barely matters, as his purpose becomes clearer."
Dua concludes, "It might take you a second to get into the voice of Crow but once you are, you are in for a treat. Grief Is The Thing With Feathers is definitely a book where you really just have to surrender to the story - take it from me, let yourself go and enjoy the wild ride."
In an interview between Dua and Max, now available, they discuss the fun Max had with the experimental form of the novel, the impact of Crow - antagonist, vandal, therapist, babysitter - who stays with the father and sons in their grief, as well as the effect the book has had on people and its "preposterous" ending.
Additional exclusive content this month from the Service95 Book Club includes a reading of the novel performed by Max Porter, as well as his uniquely curated reading list and playlist, which are available here. The Service95 Book Club has also provided readers with a companion essay this month on the connection between Ted Hughes' Crow poems and April's monthly read.
Dua's Service95 Book Club is the latest offering from her Service95 platform, which consists of the At Your Service podcast and the flagship Service95 newsletter. Service95 has been praised by The Guardian as "some of the most thought-provoking short-form cultural writing you can find," and the podcast has been lauded by The Sunday Times, Vogue and Vulture. In addition, Spotify named it one of the Best Podcasts of 2022, and praised Dua as "an incredibly thoughtful interviewer with a genuine interest in people, social movements, and the arts."
Max Porter is the author of The Death of Francis Bacon, praised as "a miniature masterpiece," and "a feat of empathy, imagination and literary brio." His Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller Lanny was longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize and the 2019 Wainwright Prize, shortlisted for the 2019
Gordon Burn Prize and shortlisted for both Waterstones and Foyles Book of the Year 2019. It has sold in 23 territories.
3x GRAMMY and 7x BRIT Award-winning global pop powerhouse
Dua Lipa continues to be one of pop music's leading forces with the release of her third album, Radical Optimism. The album went No. 1 in 12 countries, including the UK where it became the biggest album debut from a UK female artist in 2024 and garnered the highest week one sales from a UK female artist since 2021.
