Today, Dua Lipa’s Service95 Book Club reveals details about April’s Monthly Read: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. The Service95 Book Club will offer exclusive content from Dua and Michelle throughout the month on service95.com and across socials. Of Crying in H Mart, Dua says, “Some of you may already know Michelle as the uber-cool singer and guitarist of the American cult indie band Japanese Breakfast. With this book, she also proves herself to be a first-class memoirist, writing with raw honesty about her difficult teenage relationship with her mother and the grief that follows her mother’s death from cancer.” “Michelle’s mother Chongmi was Korean, and much of this story centres around the cultural and identity issues Michelle grappled with growing up in the US with a feckless American father and a tough Korean mother,” Dua adds. “Somehow food, and specifically the intricate traditional Korean dishes her mother prepared with such love and skill, becomes the theme which keeps mother and daughter together, and unites Michelle with the Korean half of her identity even after her mother has passed away. Everyone with an immigrant background will find relatability searching in a specialist food shop for food that reminds you of home, and for Michelle, food is the connective tissue of a relationship between mother and daughter that even cancer cannot break. The love and aroma from the dishes practically rises from the page.” “This is a book about loss that is also about love; it’s a book about South Korea that is also about West Coast small-town America; it’s a story that is both beautiful and heartbreaking; it is as raw as it is precious. I bawled my eyes out, but I also loved it and I hope you do too,” Dua concludes. This month’s Service95 Book Club content features an author Q&A between Dua and Michelle, where the two explore the relationship between food and heritage and how cooking has often been the connective tissue that ties them to their dual identities. Their conversation also covers the dichotomy of Michelle being both a musician and an author, as well as how Michelle found empathy through writing as she processed her grief for her mother. Readers can check out a video that delves further into Michelle’s writing process here.
Additional content this month includes Michelle’s recommended reading list and a curated playlist of her favorite Korean bands and songs she listened to while writing the novel. This month’s context piece expands upon the importance of food in South Korean culture, complemented by Service95's list of five dining hotspots to visit in Seoul. Lastly, readers can check out this month’s discussion guide here. 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.” You can follow Service95 on socials and YouTube to get the latest, and subscribe to the newsletter here to stay in the loop on upcoming monthly reads. About Michelle Zauner In addition to being the author of the internationally bestselling memoir Crying In H Mart, Michelle Zauner is best known as a singer and guitarist who creates dreamy indie pop under the name Japanese Breakfast. She has won acclaim from major music outlets around the world for releases including Psychopomp and Soft Sounds From Another Planet. Her third album, Jubilee, was released in 2021 and was nominated for two Grammys. Crying In H Mart was a New York Times number 1 bestseller. She’s currently adapting the novel for the screen for MGM’s Orion Pictures, with the film to be directed by Will Sharpe. About Dua Lipa 3x GRAMMY and 7x BRIT Award-winning global pop powerhouse Dua Lipa has announced her highly anticipated third album, Radical Optimism, will be released on May 3rd. The album features the recently released “Training Season” and the euphoric club-ready track “Houdini,” which has become Dua’s longest-running solo No. 1 on the UK Airplay charts and drew in over 12 million YouTube views within 24 hours of release. “Houdini” garnered immediate praise across the board from the likes of Billboard and Rolling Stone, who lauded the track as “a neo-psychedelic dance-floor rager," to Pitchfork and Vogue, who called it “a pop masterclass.” “Houdini” followed Dua’s hit song "Dance The Night" from the box office sensation Barbie, which landed on the Oscars shortlist and earned nominations at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards and the GRAMMYs. Dua's certified platinum sophomore album Future Nostalgia solidified her position as both a critical success and top radio performer. The GRAMMY-nominated record was the longest-running top 10 album by a female artist on the Billboard 200 in 2021 and spawned multiple worldwide hit singles, with “Levitating” earning certified diamond status and the title of Billboard’s No. 1 Hot 100 Song of 2021. Dua has found superstar status on stage and off, thanks to her many passions outside of music. 2022 saw Dua launch Service95, a global style, culture and society editorial platform that now comprises a weekly newsletter, the Service95 book club and the Dua Lipa: At Your Service podcast, which has been lauded by The Sunday Times and The Guardian, and was named one of the Best Podcasts of 2022 by Spotify. Having graced every major fashion magazine worldwide from Vogue and Elle to W and Dazed, Dua added "designer" to her resume in 2023 when she co-designed Versace's "La Vacanza" collection alongside Donatella Versace herself, which Vogue deemed "the hottest collaboration of the summer." Dua’s eponymous 2017 debut album is certified platinum, spawned six platinum tracks, and made her the first female artist in BRIT Awards history to pick up five nominations in a single year. Dua has a total of 10 GRAMMY nominations, with three wins for Best Pop Vocal Album, Best New Artist and Best Dance Recording. Across platforms globally, she has amassed over 40 billion streams and holds the record for having the top two most streamed albums by a female artist of all time on Spotify.
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