Throughout the year, Dua Lipa’s Service95 Book Club has offered a variety of interesting books that have captivated readers from month to month. In May, for instance, the book club chose Guadalupe Nettel’s Still Born, which was centered on motherhood and the transcendent power of love. In August, the book was This House of Grief by Helen Garner. It was based on the true story of Robert Farquharson and the circumstances that brought him to either accidentally or intentionally drive his car off the road and into a dam with his three children inside. Last month, David Szely’s Flesh was on the menu, which follows its main character’s journey into adulthood through a unique lens. For November, the club is switching gears a little with a book that many have possibly read—or even watched—before.
With over fifty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays, Margaret Atwood has become a household name and well-respected author. Fans are most likely familiar with her novels Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, the MaddAddam trilogy, but they might be especially familiar with her 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. The dystopian novel was turned into a hit television series in 2017, where it went on to receive Emmy and Golden Globe awards for outstanding lead actress and best actress, along with an Emmy win for Outstanding Series and Golden Globe for Best Television Series in the Drama category. In 2019, Atwood released a sequel called The Testaments, which became a global number one bestseller and a recipient of the Booker Prize. Atwood’s most recent publication is her memoir Book of Lives, which was released on November 4.
As this month is a special one for Atwood with the release of her memoir, it makes sense to celebrate and revisit The Handmaid’s Tale for the book club. Dua Lipa shares,
“Margaret Atwood: iconic, heroic…prophetic? My monthly read for November is ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ a book that terrified me when I read it in high school, but which I could at least mentally file under ‘dystopian fiction.’ Today, I’m not so sure.
“The novel tells the story of a woman trapped in the hellish world of Gilead, where what was once known as the United States is transformed into a totalitarian theocracy. All women’s rights over their bodies have been erased, and the novel’s protagonist, Offred, is now a Handmaid. Each month, Handmaids are ceremonially raped by their Commanders in a perverted echo of a Biblical story and ordered to surrender any child conceived to their families.
“Margaret has said that she didn’t make any of it up. And after re-reading ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ alongside her incredible new memoir, ‘Book of Lives,’ I understand what she means. Her memoir gives fascinating context to the story, as she shares the horrifying episodes in history that informed the writing of the book—and make it feel unsettlingly familiar to events taking place across the world right now.
“As Margaret says, the future exists in an infinite number of possibilities. ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ explores just one of these. The point of prophecy is to provide a warning—and it’s up to us to listen and choose the future we want to live in.”
In Dua Lipa’s interview with Margaret Atwood, they discuss the origin stories behind the novel and the significance of Offred’s name. They also dive into topics such as women’s rights, power, possession, and astrology—a hobby that Dua Lipa and Margaret Atwood both share.
Book club members will also find an essay written by Dua Lipa, an essay about women’s rights, an interview with costume designer Ane Crabtree, a list of five Margaret Atwood books that are must-reads, and a list of books and songs that inspired The Handmaid’s Tale. All of this and more can be found in the ‘Book Club’ section of the Service95 website.
On November 11, Service95 will share a reading from Atwood and her new memoir, which will tie into The Handmaid’s Tale. A week later on November 18, a Q&A from the reading will then be posted. Shortly after that, listeners of the Service95 Book Club with Dua Lipa podcast will be treated to an interview with Elisabeth Moss, who played Offred in the television series.
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