We will look at a few Dua Lipa book recommendations.
Dua Lipa is a singer/songwriter known for her disco pop sound. She has two best selling albums, Dua Lipa and Future Nostalgia. You may know songs like Levitating or Don’t Start Now.
She has won many awards including six Brit Awards, three Grammy Awards, two Billboard Music Awards, an American Music Award, two MTV Europe Music Awards, an MTV Video Music Award, and two Guinness World Records
Dua Lipa seems to read a lot. She posts about her books on Instagram all the time. We get to see what she has been reading, and what books she is interested in reading. She posts many book hauls, so we can join her in her reading!
I’m not quite sure if Dua Lipa has a favorite book genre, but if I had to take a guess there are two main genres that she loves.
One is romance, specifically historical romance. Two books on this list are historical romance novels. While two others still deal with history.
The other is feminist works. Many of her book hauls and reading lists include separate lists for feminist works.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Klara and the Sun was written by Kazuo Ishiguro, a Nobel Prize-winning author, and published in 2021. It contains 307 pages.
Dua Lipa recommended the book Klara and the Sun in an Instagram post on June 9th, 2022. This book was one of ten on her summer reading list. Many people were happy to see her reading this!
Klara and the Sun is a dystopian science fiction story, told from the point of view of Klara, a solar-powered android. Klara’s is an Artificial Friend, androids that belong to children due to having limited opportunities to make real friends.
The story starts with Klara stuck in the window of a store. She observes all that is happening around the store, and loves the Sun. She treats the Sun like he is a living amzn.to/3g7IXx0. She believes the Sun can save people after she mistakes people sleeping for being dead.
Klara hopes and hopes that she will soon get chosen by someone. One day a young girl named Josie comes to the store Klara is in and picks her to be her Artificial Friend. She learns that Josie is gravely ill, but an adventure awaits them both.
See how artificial intelligence may play a role in the future.
Fun fact: Klara and the Sun was also one of Bill Gates’s book recommendations!
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Girl, Woman, Other was written by Bernardine Evaristo and published in 2019. The book won a 2019 Booker Prize, which the author was the first black woman to receive such an honor. The book is about 464 pages long.
Girl, Woman, Other is narrated by 12 different Black British women who are all a part of the same group. The book deals with identity, and takes a look at British history and its colonization of Africa.
Some of the characters in Girl, Woman, Other include: Amma, playwright who writes plays based on her own lesbian identity; Shirley, a teacher who is burnt out after decades of teaching in public schools; Carole, a former student of Shirley turned investment banker; Bummi, Carole’s mother who workers as a cleaner.
The book is filled to the brim with emotion and wit, allowing us to see a side of Britain that not many people get to see. Girl, Woman, Other is here to remind you that we are all connected to our neighbors, even if we feel we are split apart.
Why does Dua Lipa recommend the book Girl, Woman, Other?
When Dua Lipa recommended the book in her Instagram post, there was a section called Dua’s Favourite Feminist Works of Literature. This book was not on that list, but it goes to show you how much Dua loves strong women.
In a later Instagram post, she included the book Girl, Woman, Other in what see called “sunday rituals + my new book haul 📚” Yup, this was one of the books in the book haul.
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
A Fine Balance was written by Rohinton Mistry, and was published in 1995. The book won a 1995 Giller Prize, and was very close to winning a Booker Prize. There has even been a play! This book is 603 pages long.
A Fine Balance was recommended by Dua Lipa in one of her Instagram posts. I guess she really loves to recommend books on Instagram!
A Fine Balance is set in India in 1975 in an unnamed city. The book follows four characters with different backgrounds: a widow, a student, and two tailors. The four of them are thrown in a cramped apartment together.
This is the time of the Emergency, which was a 21 month period where the Prime Minister of India declared a state of emergency and took rights and civil liberties away from people. You can see the effects of the Emergency on the characters in the book.
At first these people distrust each other, but over time, develop a strong friendship that forms into a love. While they don’t stay together physically, they stay together in friendship.
Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski
Swimming in the Dark was written by Tomasz Jedrowski, published in 2020, and is a short read of 224 pages. It was the best book of 2020 according to NPR.
Dua Lipa recommended the book Swimming in the Dark on, you guessed it, Instagram! This was another book that she had listed on her Summer Reads. Hmm, I wonder if she read Swimming in the Dark while on a beach?
Swimming in the Dark is the story of two young men in love, who end up being on two different sides of the political divide in 1980s Poland.
The two meet at an agricultural summer camp, and after camp was over, they spend weeks together in the countryside. They bond over a book they both love, enjoy nature, and fall deeply in love.
However, this was Communist Poland, and being a Catholic didn’t help their passionate situation because their love was forbidden in both of these societies.
They both return to Warsaw, and do their own things. One starts to rise up in the political ranks of the government, while the other ends up protesting the cost of goods in the country. Even though they keep their love a secret, their differences start to cut into their relationship.
Swimming in the Dark takes you through all the stages of a relationship, while giving you a glimpse into the history and politics of Poland.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
The Unbearable Lightness of Being was written by Milan Kundera, and published in 1984. The book has 320 pages.
Dua Lipa once recommended the book The Unbearable Lightness of Being while answering fan questions in a YouTube video. The question was, “What is your favorite book?” to which she replied, “My favorite book is The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It’s a very complicated love story, and it’s a brilliant book. Everyone should read it.”
The story is of two young couples: a young woman in love with a womanizer, and another the man’s mistress and her lover. That’s not all! There is also a dog.
The book mainly takes place in Prague of Czechoslovakia between the 1960s and 1970s. Many historical events happen in the book including the Prague Spring, the invasion by the Soviet Union, and the aftermath of it all.
Jump into this story of passion and politics, romance and renaissance, and find out what Dua Lipa feels when she reads her favorite book.