Dua Lipa’s reading list has a very specific kind of magnetism: sharp, stylish, politically aware, and just a little unsettling. Her book choices lean toward stories that question power, identity, art, justice, and the strange emotional weather of modern life.
Looking at the books recommended by Dua Lipa, one thing becomes clear: she is drawn to writers who don’t over-explain. These are books with edge — novels, memoirs, and literary works that ask readers to pay attention, sit with discomfort, and think beyond the obvious.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Written as a letter from a son to his mother, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous moves through memory, trauma, migration, love, and identity with extraordinary emotional precision.
Ocean Vuong blends poetry and prose so seamlessly that the novel often feels less like narration and more like a series of emotional impressions unfolding in real time. Beneath its beauty lies a deeply intimate exploration of family, survival, and the cost of trying to build a life within systems that were never designed for you.
Why You Should Read It
This is a book for readers who love language as much as story. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous rewards slow reading — not because it is difficult, but because nearly every sentence carries emotional weight. If you’re drawn to literary fiction that feels lyrical, vulnerable, and deeply human, this novel leaves a lasting mark.
Dua Lipa’s Take
What pulls Dua in first is the title itself, which she describes as immediately captivating. But it’s Vuong’s language that truly stays with her — prose that, in her words, “dances on every page.” What’s striking about her reflection is that she doesn’t reduce the novel to its sadness or political themes alone. Instead, she recognises the balance at its core: a story shaped by hardship and displacement, yet anchored by tenderness — especially the enduring love between mother and son that runs quietly through every page.
Get Book: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous!The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid’s Tale imagines a future where women’s bodies, freedoms, and identities are controlled by a totalitarian regime. Through Offred’s voice, Margaret Atwood creates a world that feels chilling not because it is impossible, but because it is built from real histories, real fears, and real systems of power. The novel remains powerful because it turns dystopia into warning.
Why You Should Read It
This is a book for readers who like fiction with teeth. The Handmaid’s Tale is tense, intelligent, and deeply unsettling, forcing you to think about freedom, gender, silence, and resistance. If you enjoy speculative fiction that feels politically urgent, this is essential reading.
Dua Lipa’s Take
Dua frames the novel as a warning rather than a fixed prediction. As she puts it,
“the future exists in an infinite number of possibilities,”
and The Handmaid’s Tale shows only one of them. That perspective captures why the book still matters: its power is not just in imagining a dark future, but in reminding readers that the future is still something we choose.
Get Book: The Handmaid’s Tale!Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Lincoln in the Bardo takes place over a single night as Abraham Lincoln mourns the death of his young son, Willie, while ghosts linger in a strange in-between realm known as the bardo. George Saunders blends historical fiction, experimental structure, and dark humour into something unexpectedly moving, creating a novel that is at once chaotic, intimate, and profoundly compassionate.
The result feels less like a conventional narrative and more like a chorus of grief, memory, and longing.
Why You Should Read It
This is a book for readers open to something unconventional. Lincoln in the Bardo demands a little patience at first, but rewards it with extraordinary emotional depth. If you enjoy literary fiction that experiments with form while still remaining deeply human, this novel is both inventive and haunting.
Dua Lipa’s Take
What Dua seems most drawn to is the novel’s emotional generosity beneath all its strangeness. She describes it as “unique, bold and compassionate,” admiring the way Saunders transforms grief into something communal through his chorus of “monologuing, bickering ghosts.” But it’s her final observation that reveals the heart of her connection to the book:
“There is no one writing today who can match George Saunders for compassion and empathy.”
For all its experimentation, this is ultimately a novel about tenderness — about how people carry loss, love, and one another.
Get Book: Lincoln in the Bardo!Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman
Noughts & Crosses imagines a society where racial power structures are reversed: the ruling Crosses hold political and social dominance, while the marginalized Noughts live under systemic discrimination. At the center of the story is the relationship between Sephy and Callum, two young people divided by the world they were born into.
Malorie Blackman uses the framework of dystopian YA fiction to explore prejudice, violence, privilege, and love with remarkable emotional immediacy.
Why You Should Read It
This is a book that moves fast while still asking difficult questions. Noughts & Crosses combines romance, political tension, and emotional heartbreak in a way that makes its themes impossible to ignore. If you enjoy stories that are both gripping and socially sharp — the kind that stay with you long after you finish them — this novel is essential.
Dua Lipa’s Take
Dua’s connection to Malorie Blackman feels deeply generational. She writes that
“like many people my age, I was partly raised by Malorie Blackman,”
which perfectly captures the author’s influence on an entire wave of young readers. What makes Noughts & Crosses stand out for her is its balance: “pacey, romantic, tortured and enlightening” all at once. That mix of emotional intensity and social awareness aligns closely with Dua’s broader reading taste — books that pull you in completely while still leaving you thinking long after the final page.
Get Book: Noughts & Crosses!The Trees by Percival Everett
The Trees begins as a murder mystery in a small Mississippi town, but quickly transforms into something stranger, darker, and far more provocative. Percival Everett blends satire, horror, history, and absurdist humour to confront the legacy of racial violence in America, particularly the lynching of Emmett Till. The novel moves unpredictably, balancing shocking comedy with moments of real emotional and historical weight.
Why You Should Read It
This is a book that refuses to stay in one lane. The Trees is funny, unsettling, furious, and deeply intelligent all at once, using humour not to soften its subject matter, but to sharpen it. If you’re drawn to fiction that experiments with tone while still delivering a powerful social critique, this novel is unforgettable.
Dua Lipa’s Take
What Dua seems to admire most is Everett’s ability to make readers laugh and recoil almost simultaneously. She describes the novel as Percival “at his very best,” praising the “one-liners that will make you howl with laughter” even as the story “punch[es] you in the gut.” That tension is exactly what gives the novel its force. It’s not just clever or shocking for the sake of it — it uses humour to disarm you before confronting you with something much heavier underneath.
Get Book: The Trees!Widow Basquiat: A Love Story by Jennifer Clement
Widow Basquiat tells the story of Jean-Michel Basquiat through the eyes of Suzanne Mallouk, the artist’s partner during his rise to fame in 1980s New York. Rather than treating Basquiat as a distant cultural symbol, Jennifer Clement presents him as intensely human — brilliant, restless, vulnerable, and consumed by the pressures surrounding his meteoric success.
The book moves through love, art, addiction, and the chaos of a creative scene that often blurred self-destruction with genius.
Why You Should Read It
This is a book for readers fascinated by the lives behind cultural icons. Widow Basquiat goes beyond the mythology surrounding Basquiat to explore the emotional reality of being close to someone both extraordinarily gifted and deeply fragile. If you’re interested in art, creativity, and the complicated relationship between genius and fame, this memoir offers a strikingly intimate perspective.
Dua Lipa’s Take
What draws Dua to the book is how completely it reframes Basquiat for her. She points out that his image and work have become almost omnipresent — “from gallery walls to high-top sneakers” — yet he still feels elusive. Widow Basquiat, for her, cuts through that mythology. She especially values the way the book illuminates the recurring symbols and language within his paintings, revealing “the true creative genius behind the icon.” It’s a response that reflects her broader attraction to books that look beneath public image and uncover the more complicated person underneath.
Get Book: Widow Basquiat: A Love Story!The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
The Bee Sting follows the Barnes family as financial strain, secrecy, and emotional distance slowly begin to fracture their lives.
Set in contemporary Ireland, the novel moves between the perspectives of each family member, revealing how misunderstandings, avoidance, and private fears accumulate over time. Paul Murray balances dark humour with emotional precision, creating a story that feels both intimate and quietly catastrophic.
Why You Should Read It
This is a book for readers who love slow-building emotional tension. The Bee Sting understands that families rarely collapse all at once — they unravel through silence, assumptions, and the things left unsaid. If you’re drawn to literary family sagas with sharp psychological insight and moments of devastating clarity, this novel is deeply absorbing.
Dua Lipa’s Take
What captivates Dua most is the novel’s precision in escalating tension. She calls it a “masterclass in building tension,” pointing to the “almost Shakespearean levels of miscommunication” that drive the family further apart. That comparison feels especially revealing. Like Shakespearean tragedy, the novel isn’t powered by villains so much as by human blindness — people misunderstanding one another until the emotional distance becomes almost impossible to bridge.
Get Book: The Bee Sting!Flesh by David Szalay
Flesh follows István, a man whose inner life remains deliberately difficult to fully access, even as the novel traces the choices, relationships, and emotional undercurrents shaping his world.
David Szalay writes with remarkable restraint, revealing character through implication rather than explanation. The result is a novel that feels psychologically precise without ever fully resolving its mysteries.
Why You Should Read It
This is a book for readers who appreciate subtlety. Flesh trusts you to notice what is left unsaid — the tension beneath dialogue, the meaning hidden inside restraint, the emotional gaps between people. If you enjoy literary fiction that rewards close reading and lingers in ambiguity rather than certainty, this novel is deeply compelling.
Dua Lipa’s Take
What Dua admires most is Szalay’s control. She praises his “discipline as a writer to give us just enough,” recognising how carefully the novel withholds information without ever feeling incomplete. Her fascination with István as a character — someone readers will continue to “analyse and puzzle over” — reveals a broader pattern in her reading taste: an attraction to books that resist easy interpretation. These are stories that leave space for uncertainty, trusting the reader to sit with complexity rather than solve it.
Get Book: Flesh!This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial by Helen Garner
This House of Grief follows the trial of a father accused of driving his car into a dam with his three sons inside. Rather than sensationalising the case, Helen Garner approaches it with intense emotional and observational precision, focusing on the uncertainty, contradictions, and quiet devastations that unfold inside the courtroom. The book becomes less about solving a mystery and more about examining grief, human behaviour, and the limits of certainty.
Why You Should Read It
This is a book for readers drawn to literary nonfiction that feels psychologically immersive. This House of Grief asks difficult questions without rushing toward easy conclusions, allowing ambiguity to remain where ambiguity belongs. If you’re interested in true stories told with emotional intelligence and extraordinary attention to detail, this book is deeply compelling.
Dua Lipa’s Take
What stands out in Dua’s response is not just admiration for this book, but excitement at discovering Helen Garner herself. She describes Garner as “one of the most fascinating writers” she has encountered in recent years, suggesting the experience opened up an entirely new literary world for her. That enthusiasm feels telling. Dua’s reading taste consistently leans toward writers who observe people with nuance and restraint — authors who trust complexity rather than flatten it. Garner clearly fits that instinct perfectly.
Get Book: This House of Grief!There There by Tommy Orange
There There follows a wide cast of interconnected Native characters living in urban America, each carrying their own histories, wounds, ambitions, and uncertainties. Tommy Orange moves between perspectives with urgency and emotional precision, building a portrait of identity that resists simplification at every turn.
The novel explores generational trauma, displacement, addiction, violence, and belonging — but it also captures humour, tenderness, and the search for connection within modern life.
Why You Should Read It
This is a book that challenges assumptions. There There refuses romanticised or stereotypical portrayals of Native identity, instead presenting people as layered, contemporary, and fully human. If you’re drawn to literary fiction that expands perspective while remaining emotionally gripping, this novel is both powerful and necessary.
Dua Lipa’s Take
Dua’s reflection cuts straight to what makes the novel so important: its refusal to flatten Native lives into familiar imagery or expectation.
“If you are expecting beads and fry bread,” she writes, “you’ve come to the wrong book.”
What she admires is the sheer complexity of Orange’s characters — filmmakers, survivors, addicts, parents, teenagers — people living fully contemporary lives while still carrying history with them. It’s a response that aligns closely with her broader reading taste: books that dismantle simplistic narratives and insist on seeing people in their full humanity.
Get Book: There There!Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead begins like a murder mystery in a remote Polish village, but quickly expands into something stranger and far more philosophical.
Through the voice of Janina Duszejko — eccentric, sharp-tongued, and deeply attuned to the natural world — Olga Tokarczuk explores morality, isolation, aging, animal rights, and humanity’s uneasy relationship with violence. The novel moves between satire and seriousness with remarkable ease, never settling comfortably into one genre.
Why You Should Read It
This is a book for readers who enjoy fiction that refuses to behave predictably. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead combines mystery, dark humour, and existential reflection in a way that feels both playful and deeply unsettling. If you like novels that blur literary fiction with crime and leave you thinking long after the ending, this one is unforgettable.
Dua Lipa’s Take
What Dua appreciates most is how impossible the novel is to reduce to a simple genre label. She describes it as “much more than a mere whodunnit,” recognising how Tokarczuk uses the structure of crime fiction to explore much larger questions beneath the surface. Dua is also clearly drawn to the book’s tonal complexity — “darkly humorous” yet “deadly serious” — and to its unforgettable cast of odd, deeply human characters. Her final observation, that reading the novel makes it obvious why Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize, speaks to the scale of admiration the book inspired in her.
Get Book: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead!Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
In Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner reflects on her relationship with her Korean mother, tracing the tensions, misunderstandings, and deep love that shaped their connection before her mother’s death from cancer.
Food becomes both memory and language throughout the memoir — a way of preserving identity, grief, and intimacy when words fail. Zauner writes with remarkable emotional honesty, allowing contradictory feelings to exist side by side without trying to resolve them neatly.
Why You Should Read It
This is a memoir that understands grief in all its complexity. Crying in H Mart is heartbreaking without ever becoming sentimental, exploring family, culture, identity, and loss with vulnerability and precision. If you’re drawn to personal writing that feels intimate, reflective, and deeply human, this book resonates far beyond its final page.
Dua Lipa’s Take
Dua introduces many readers to Zauner first through music, describing her as the “uber-cool” frontwoman of Japanese Breakfast before turning to the memoir itself. But what clearly impresses her most is Zauner’s writing — the “raw honesty” with which she explores both teenage conflict and devastating loss. That combination of cool exterior and emotional openness seems to fit perfectly within Dua’s broader reading taste: stories that feel stylish and culturally sharp on the surface, but emotionally exposed underneath.
Get Book: Crying in H Mart!Trust by Hernan Diaz
Trust unfolds through four competing narratives surrounding a wealthy financier and his wife in 1920s New York, with each version subtly reshaping the truth that came before it.
Hernan Diaz plays with perspective, authorship, memory, and manipulation, turning the novel into both a literary puzzle and a critique of power. As the story shifts between novel, memoir, manuscript, and journal, the reader is forced to question not just what happened, but who gets to control the story of what happened.
Why You Should Read It
This is a book for readers who enjoy fiction that rewards attention. Trust is intellectually layered without losing momentum, balancing psychological tension with sharp social observation. If you’re drawn to novels about wealth, influence, and the instability of truth itself, this Pulitzer Prize winner is both sophisticated and deeply absorbing.
Dua Lipa’s Take
What fascinates Dua most is the novel’s relationship with reality — the way each narrative reframes the one before it until certainty itself begins to feel unstable. She’s especially interested in the question at the center of the book: “which version should you trust?” But her sharpest observation comes at the end, when she points to “the ease with which money and power can bend reality itself.” That focus feels very aligned with her reading taste overall: books that are stylish and structurally inventive, but ultimately concerned with how power shapes the stories people are allowed to believe.
Get Book: Trust by Hernan Diaz!A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns follows the intertwined lives of Mariam and Laila across decades of war, political upheaval, and social restriction in Afghanistan.
Khaled Hosseini combines sweeping historical context with deeply intimate storytelling, grounding large-scale conflict in the everyday realities of love, survival, motherhood, and friendship. The novel is emotionally expansive, balancing brutality with moments of tenderness and resilience.
Why You Should Read It
This is a book that breaks your heart and rebuilds it at the same time. A Thousand Splendid Suns offers insight into Afghanistan’s modern history while never losing sight of the emotional lives at its center. If you’re drawn to character-driven stories about endurance, sacrifice, and human connection under impossible circumstances, this novel is unforgettable.
Dua Lipa’s Take
What Dua responds to most is the novel’s emotional generosity. While she acknowledges the oppression and political turmoil woven through the story, she’s equally struck by how deeply it is “infused with love” — between families, lovers, and especially between Mariam and Laila. Her connection to their friendship feels particularly meaningful. In a novel filled with hardship, it’s the tenderness between these two women that resonates most strongly with her, reflecting once again her attraction to books that find humanity and intimacy even in the darkest circumstances.
Get Book: A Thousand Splendid Suns!Closing
Taken together, the books recommended by Dua Lipa reveal a reading life that is far more literary, politically aware, and emotionally nuanced than many people might expect. This is not a collection built around trends or surface-level “cool.” Instead, these books lean into ambiguity, complexity, and emotional risk — stories that challenge readers while still pulling them in completely.
What stands out most is Dua’s attraction to contradiction. Again and again, she gravitates toward books that are both intellectually sharp and emotionally vulnerable: novels that are funny and devastating, tender and furious, intimate and political. Whether through dystopian warnings, fractured family sagas, meditations on grief, or stories about identity and power, these books resist easy categorisation.
There is also a clear fascination with perspective running through the list. Many of these works question official narratives, disrupt stereotypes, or force readers to reconsider who gets to tell a story in the first place. Even the more intimate books — Crying in H Mart, Swimming in the Dark, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous — are ultimately concerned with visibility: what it means to be seen, misunderstood, hidden, or remembered.
In the end, Dua Lipa’s reading list feels remarkably aligned with the energy people often associate with her: stylish, curious, emotionally intelligent, and just slightly elusive. These are books that don’t hand everything over immediately. They ask you to lean in, pay attention, and stay with the discomfort long enough to discover something deeper underneath.
