DUA LIPA’S SERVICE95 BOOK CLUB ANNOUNCES JULY’S MONTHLY READ: “FREE” BY LEA YPI
Dua Lipa’s Service95 Book Club announces details for July’s monthly read, Free by the award-winning author, professor, and fellow Albanian, Lea Ypi. The Service95 Book Club will offer exclusive content from Dua and Lea throughout the month on service95.com, across socials, and via the Service95 Book Club With Dua Lipa podcast, where readers can listen to Dua’s interview with Lea starting today.
Speaking about July’s monthly read, Dua shares:
“Lea Ypi was eleven when socialism fell in Albania. Until this point, she had loved Stalin and Uncle Enver Hoxta – who ruled Albania with an iron fist for over 40 years – with a child’s unquestioning devotion.
Lea describes a Stalinist country so politically isolated it had fallen out not only with the West, but also with the Soviet Union and China, too. The child’s perspective makes this strangeness feel completely normal. One entire chapter is about a Coke can. In Lea’s Albania, an empty Coke can is a status symbol; something to covet. Her mother saves up to buy one. It goes missing. A neighbourhood feud erupts. By the time it is resolved, everyone has moved on to Fanta.
But underneath the absurdity, ‘Free’ is about what happens when freedom arrives and turns out to be far messier than anyone imagined. Factories close, jobs disappear, families are separated and civil war breaks out. When so many versions of freedom are presented, Lea starts asking the question: ‘what does it actually mean to be free?’
‘Free’ revealed things to me about a country I know and love well. The history is so recent, but the lived experience has changed so much in just one generation. What an era to live through, what an education to share.”
– Dua Lipa
In Dua’s interview with Lea, the two talk about Lea’s childhood in communist Albania, exploring how life under dictatorship shaped her understanding of freedom, identity and truth. Together, they discuss the collapse of communism, the complexities of democracy, why Free challenges conventional ideas about what it really means to be “free” – and the inspiration they take from the political protests taking place in Albania today.
To accompany July’s monthly read, Lea has shared her recommended reading list and playlist. Readers can also check out three supplemental pieces from Service95 relating to the themes of Free, starting with a list of 5 Things To Know About Albania’s History Before Reading Free, as well as a photo essay on Albanian bunkers, and a travel piece that follows a road trip through the mountain ranges and interior of Albania.
The Service95 Book Club is the latest extension of Service95 – a global cultural platform and community that also consists of a weekly newsletter and Dua’s At Your Service podcast. The Service95 Book Club is a place where Dua shares her favorite reads straight from her bookshelf, alongside countless recommendations, reviews and interviews from the Service95 team and beyond. Dua’s conversations with the authors – from Margaret Atwood to Olga Tokarczuk to Ocean Vuong – peel back the layers behind stories selected from around the world and have gone on to earn her the title of “one of Britain’s foremost literary tastemakers” from The Telegraph and “the queen of trendsetting literary taste” from The Independent. In addition, the Service95 Book Club podcast was recognized among the Best Podcasts of the Week by The Guardian upon launch and landed atop Spotify’s list of the Best Video Podcasts of 2025.
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