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    I was snooty about celebrity book clubs – until I watched Dua Lipa and Helen Garner

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    By Jane Sullivan

    Copyright brisbanetimes

    I was snooty about celebrity book clubs – until I watched Dua Lipa and Helen Garner

    You could not get two more different women on one screen. On the left: Dua Lipa, English-Albanian celebrity singer, songwriter, actress. On the right: Helen Garner, Australian writer. They are having a lively conversation of mutual respect, thoughtfulness and curiosity.

    When approached for an interview for the singer’s Service95 Book Club, Garner had to ask her grandsons who Dua Lipa was. The boys were suitably gobsmacked. But despite the fact their worlds are poles apart, these two women appear to be getting on really well. They are discussing Garner’s book This House of Grief, her 2014 account of the trial of Robert Farquhar, accused of murder after he drove his three sons into a dam.

    Celebrity attention to books means attention from many readers around the world, no doubt discovering this Australian author for the first time through Dua Lipa’s book club.

    I used to be a bit snooty about celebrity book clubs, though not as snooty as Jonathan Franzen, who notoriously refused to appear on Oprah Winfrey’s TV show after she picked his novel The Corrections as a must-read. (He later apologised). But after seeing the Garner-Lipa interview, and after checking out some other celebrity book clubs, I’ve changed my mind. These women (it’s mostly women) are doing a great job.

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