Marilyn and Her Books: The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe

by Gail Crowther

Timed to the 100th birthday of Marilyn Monroe comes an investigation into the literary life of the Hollywood icon and actress, from the author of Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz and Dorothy Parker in Hollywood. Far from the spotlights of the Hollywood film sets and the flashbulbs of the press, Marilyn Monroe was a great reader and lover of books. Her association with writers did not stop at reading their words on the page. She was, of course, briefly married to one of America’s best-known playwrights, Arthur Miller, and met a number of other writers who moved in his literary world. But she also met authors independently of Miller, many of whom were fans of her films and keen to meet her. Through her deep research, Crowther delves into Marilyn’s personal collection of books and recounts some of these meetings, like the time Monroe shared an apartment with Shelley Winters in West Hollywood, where they entertained Dylan Thomas and Christopher Isherwood for drinks (probably several drinks), after which Monroe arranged for Thomas to meet his childhood hero, Charlie Chaplin. Or when Life magazine arranged for Monroe to be interviewed by Dame Edith Sitwell at the Sunset Tower Hotel, and Sitwell was both charmed and blown away by Monroe’s intelligence. Marilyn And Her The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe charts how Monroe, who left high school before graduation, embarked on an impressive and progressive program of self-education, hungry for knowledge, and devouring books as an active and engaged reader. Her personal library reflects this enquiring mind. In 2026, for her centenary, this book showcases Marilyn Monroe, the reader. Because at the end of her life, it was not her jewels or her furs, her shoes, or dresses that she cared about. It was her books.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Books About Books, Memoir, Audiobook, Film

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 26, 2026

About the author

Dr Gail Crowther is co-author of Sylvia Plath in Devon: A Year's Turning (2015) written with Elizabeth Sigmund. She is also author of The Haunted Reader and Sylvia Plath (2016). She has also written numerous papers and book chapters about Plath and sociological hauntings. She has lectured in Sociology, and Religion, Culture and Society and her current research interests include archival studies and feminist life writing.

Reviews

[Zoë · Rating 3 out of 5]

marilyn would have had a killer celeb book club

[Rick B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because Marilyn Monroe would have celebrated her 100th birthday this year, perhaps there was a need to recognize this with another book. This book is nothing more than speculating on the books Marilyn Monroe had in her house. This could have simply been one magazine article about the title of books found in her home. Instead the author drew her own conclusions based on these books. In fact it is a mystery if these books were read at all or simply gifts or books that were just put on display. While i was fascinated with the title of the books found that were boxed up and stored away and not found until 1999 and the $ they brought in at auction, the fascination stopped there. We all can easily draw our own conclusions as to what the books represented.

[Faye · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was expecting to find this interesting, but I ended up really really enjoying it. Gail Crowther has done massive amounts of research into Marilyn Monroe's life, her contemporary world, each one of the books she owned at the time of her death, and every comment made by and about Marilyn in regards to her relationship with literature. You can learn a lot about a person by looking at the books they treasure (and the books that are notably absent from their collection), and Crowther offers us a surprising amount of information on Marilyn from hers.

For instance, I was fascinated to learn just how ahead of her time Marilyn was in collecting banned books. She also appears to have been a devoted reader of self-help books before the self-help industry was really a thing. And if you're interested to know which genres Marilyn indulged in and which she avoided, Crowther's got you covered.

Aside from the bookshelf-snooping, though, Crowther also explores the way Marilyn's contemporaries reacted to seeing her read, and I've gotta tell you, the RAGE some of the comments stirred up in me... And people (read: men) are still making the same comments about her today!

To be honest, I take that personally. I've been reading "heavy" literature since I was 12, and I've always been tiny, shy, and young-looking for my age (strangers still think I'm a teen or in my 20s, and I'm over 40). A lot of people (read: men) over the years have laughed or sneered or rolled their eyes at the idea that I read Literature with a capital L. If they, as intellectually superior beings, struggle to read these things, how could this little girl with the pixie face possibly manage it?? Hahaha! Right? 🙄 So I relate on a deep level to Marilyn's constant struggle to be taken seriously as a reader.

And on a related note, I'm finally going to read Ulysses this summer. I've tried to avoid it because I think James Joyce was a little too full of himself, but... the way people (read: men) STILL act like Marilyn (read: any woman, probably) couldn't possibly have ACTUALLY read it makes me livid. It's words on pages, bros. Stop acting like it's quantum mechanics or something. (Not that quantum mechanics is impenetrable either.)

But anyway, yes, I loved this book. If you enjoy books about books and/or books about Marilyn Monroe, I highly recommend checking it out.

[Stella Savage · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It gave me a picture of a different Marilyn than the one we are usually spoon fed. So well researched and beautifully written.

[Lucia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book would have been a really interesting piece in a magazine or newspaper but there’s just not enough information for a 250 page book. I did learn some things about Marilyn that were interesting! Unfortunately, most of the book felt like a high school essay where you’re just trying to reach the word count. One of the chapters was called “Did Marilyn Treasure Her Books” and then opened with four paragraphs on why people treasure books. Clearly…the audience reading a book on Marilyn’s literary interests understands why people treasure books. One of the sentences in this chapter was “opening a book can be like a sudden burst of emotional glitter” …🫪. What does that even mean.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting if not entirely honest portrait of Marilyn Monroe through the contents of her bookshelves.

The primary goal of this book seems to be to lionize Monroe as a person rather than to examine the reading habits of a complicated woman. It’s easy to see Monroe as a victim—of the Hollywood machine, of men, of culture—and in some ways she was.

But Monroe was also the architect of much of what befell her, and this book appears to seek to erase that entirely. It’s odd to, for example, spend dozens of pages extolling Monroe’s kindness while entirely ignoring the fact that she publicly threw herself at someone else’s husband. That JFK is by far the greater villain when it comes to Jackie Kennedy is undoubtable. But Monroe, however troubled, was a person with autonomy and often the creator of her own problems, a fact that is strangely absent from this account of her life.

I also struggle to see the contents of someone’s bookshelves as some sort of absolute diagnosis of their character and values. A bit of this kind of speculation is fine in a book like this, but there is entirely too much determination by the text to assign psychological meaning of every book Monroe owned as an indicator of who she was as a person. Thinking about all the books on my own shelves and how many of them are in no way representative of me, how I think, or how I see myself, I don’t think this kind of guesswork is of any service to Monroe.

What the book does get right is the portrait of Monroe as much more than just an actress, and certainly far from the vapid “dumb blonde” that much of the public dismissed her as.

Monroe was a complicated person, both sympathetic and untrustworthy, kind and selfish. That’s both more honest and frankly, more interesting than the mushy apologist account we get here.

*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

[Tara ✨booksbeersbattlestargalactica✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve seen a few of Marilyn Monroe’s movies and of course she’s always been well known for being a blonde bombshell, but this read breathes life into her through her personal library and reading habits. Marilyn and Her Books is an exploration of the actress and the hardships she went through and why reading was so important to her (although no one thought she was smart enough to read 🙄)

I did skip/skim some of the chapters because I just wasn’t interested. All the information dumps and comparisons of other actors and the studios just didn’t interest me but I loved the sections about the reading and books. Fortunately, the chapters are titled so it was easy to figure out which parts I would be really interested in.

This is definitely a must if you love learning about old Hollywood, Marilyn Monroe, acting, and reading amongst the elite in the 50s-60s.

[Chrissie Whitley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to follow.

[Bert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always down for a new book about Marilyn. What a treat this was, Marilyn and the books she loved. A treasure to read.

[Karen Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are so many books about the iconic Marilyn Monroe; this one is unique because it focuses not on her scandals, career, marriages, or beauty, but on her mind.

The author explores Marilyn as a voracious reader and owner of many books that followed her wherever she moved. This may come to a great surprise to people who only know her by the salacious details of her life. It certainly came to a great surprise to the men she married. But Marilyn had an active and curious mind that she fed books of about every genre, from psychology, science, politics, poetry, fiction, biography… among her favorites were Russian and French literature. Yet her famous looks in a society devoted to the male gaze led to her reading habit to be dismissed and often ridiculed. “Marilyn can read?” Even the famous author she married, Arthur Miller, barely took her reading and intellect seriously. The author goes into painstaking detail about all the times she was publicly dismissed, in misogynistic fashion.

But often, Marilyn’s mind was part of her charm and she won the esteem and love of famous writers such as Dorothy Parker, Carl Sandburg, Jean-Paul Sartre, Carson McCullers, Isak Dinesen, and many more. The author recounts a lunch at which Marilyn and her husband Arthur attended at Carson McCullers’ house to broker an introduction to Isak Dinesen, who wanted to meet the famous movie star. While Arthur Miller peppered his fellow author Dinesen annoying questions, criticizing what she was eating and drinking, Marilyn soon won over McCullers and Dinesen with book talk and there’s a great photo of the three on this occasion where McCullers is giving Marilyn a big kiss on the cheek as Dinesen enjoys her drink. The Debbie Downer, Arthur Miller, is not pictured, which just tickles me.

This book does not go into the biographical details of Marilyn’s life, only as much as it pertains to her relationship with reading and authors. In a way, it’s refreshing, but it does assume that the reader has background knowledge of her life story. Instead, the author lets Marilyn’s books tell her story. We learn about her history and the precious few good childhood memories in the kids books she kept; we learn of her anxiety and fears through her psychology and self-help books; we feel her desire to learn more about the human condition to improve her acting and generally improve her mind through the variety of books she kept and wrote notes in.

Due to circumstances in her childhood, she dropped out of high school to get married, a move she always regretted and felt self-conscious about. Through books, she received an education that gave her a wisdom that even today is unexpected of her. While many writers came to know and love her, and bond with her over reading, there are writers who never saw her beyond a face or a body, and maligned her in their writing. Norman Mailer had a toxic obsession with her, Truman Capote, well, can’t seem to help but self-destruct via gossiping, and Arthur Miller could have used therapy to deal with his stunted grief after Marilyn’s death instead of writing a play that depicted her horribly. Truly, none of these men understood her at all.

My only criticism of the book is that the author inserts herself in two chapters that begin and end the book with a totally unnecessary daydream sequence through Marilyn’s house. It gets really over-sentimental at the end to the point of being a little cringy. Thankfully, these chapters are brief and the rest of the book shines.

[Gretta · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book. However, the author had to spend so much time dispelling the myth that Marilyn Monroe was stupid, that she wasn’t able to spend as much time connecting the books on Marilyn’s shelves to her biography as I would have liked (though she did do this throughout). She does spend a lot of time discussing Marilyn’s relationships with authors, though, which is fascinating - both her attitudes toward them and their attitudes toward her. I also had a spooky coincidence while reading this book, as I picked up and read, for the first time, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Shortly after finishing, I read the section about Marilyn owning 4 copies of The Prophet. I have a feeling I’ll be referring to Marilyn and Her Books in a lot of upcoming conversations.

[Gina Dalfonzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crowther has very thoroughly researched her subject and writes convincingly of Marilyn's genuine love for reading and interest in all kinds of topics. The book feels a little padded in places -- someone who would pick up a book like this in the first place probably doesn't need ruminations on why reading is so important and what it does for us -- but overall it does a good job with its unique and interesting angle.

[Erin Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting and unique angle of Marilyn and what she was really like.

[Desirae · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have long been fascinated by the real Norma Jeane Baker—not simply the movie star Marilyn Monroe. The mythology surrounding Marilyn has become so enormous that sometimes the actual woman disappears beneath the platinum hair, white dress, breathy voice, photographs, scandals, marriages, and the tragic circumstances of her death. What I loved about Gail Crowther’s Marilyn and Her Books: The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe is that it attempts to pull back some of that mythology and look at Marilyn through something much quieter and, in many ways, much more revealing: the books she owned, read, studied, discussed, and carried with her throughout her life.

The premise of the book is wonderfully simple. Marilyn Monroe owned more than 400 books when she died in 1962, and Crowther uses that personal library as a way of reconstructing the intellectual life of a woman who has been routinely dismissed as a “dumb blonde.” Crowther examines what Marilyn read, what genres interested her, why there are so many photographs of her with books, how reading influenced her acting, whether she actually read everything she owned, and why people remain so determined to doubt her intelligence. The result is part biography, part literary detective work, and part examination of the misogyny that helped create the Marilyn myth in the first place.

One of the most fascinating things here is the sheer variety of Marilyn’s library. She gravitated toward Russian literature, poetry, plays, psychology, philosophy, acting books, banned books, and plenty of more practical or popular titles. Dostoevsky was particularly important to her, and she owned multiple copies of some books, including at least four copies of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. She also read Joyce’s Ulysses, something that has become almost comical in the mythology surrounding her. There is that famous photograph of Marilyn reading it, which has inspired endless jokes about whether she could possibly have understood what she was reading. Crowther makes a compelling case that Joyce was not simply a prop for a publicity photograph. Marilyn genuinely returned to the book and was particularly interested in Molly Bloom’s closing soliloquy.

And then there are the receipts, which might be my favorite part of the entire premise. Crowther digs into the records from bookstores Marilyn frequented, including the Pickwick Book Shop, Martindale’s and Hunter’s Books, allowing us to see what she actually purchased rather than simply relying on photographs of her holding books. One especially fun tidbit: according to the receipts discussed in the book, Marilyn purchased her copy of The Great Gatsby on October 29th—my birthday! It is such a tiny, completely inconsequential coincidence, but these are exactly the kinds of details that made me feel like I was getting glimpses of Norma Jeane the person rather than Marilyn Monroe the cultural object.

There are so many details here that contradict the woman most people think they know. Marilyn never graduated high school, but in 1951 she enrolled in two literature courses through UCLA’s adult-extension program. She was an active participant in a world of writers and intellectuals, not merely someone married to Arthur Miller who happened to be surrounded by literary people. She and Shelley Winters entertained Dylan Thomas and Christopher Isherwood in their apartment, and Marilyn even arranged for Thomas to meet his childhood hero, Charlie Chaplin. When Life arranged for Marilyn to be interviewed by Dame Edith Sitwell, Sitwell was reportedly both charmed and impressed by her intelligence.

Perhaps most interestingly, Marilyn’s relationship with books seems to have been deeply connected to her desire to educate herself. Books offered her something Hollywood could not: privacy, knowledge, and a way of becoming someone beyond the character everyone else had constructed for her. She read Proust on film sets, recited poetry at parties, studied acting techniques, and read writers such as Whitman, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. She also had opinions—sometimes surprisingly sharp ones. Her criticism of Hemingway, for example, was wonderfully unsentimental, particularly her observation that his supposedly “tough” men were obsessed with proving themselves through violence.

Crowther is also careful to address the uncomfortable question of whether Marilyn actually read every book she owned. Arthur Miller claimed that she rarely finished books, aside from certain short stories and Colette’s Chéri. And I appreciated that Crowther doesn't pretend the evidence is more definitive than it is. This is ultimately a book built partly from physical evidence, photographs, receipts, marginalia, diaries, recollections, and educated speculation.

What stayed with me most is the sadness of realizing that Marilyn was rarely given the opportunity to simply be intelligent. If she was photographed reading, people assumed the book was a prop. If she discussed literature, people questioned whether she understood it. If she played the “dumb blonde,” the world decided the character must have been the woman underneath it.

Marilyn and Her Books doesn't completely solve the mystery of Norma Jeane Baker, nor could it. But it does something perhaps more valuable: it gives us another piece of her. Behind the icon was a woman who was curious, ambitious, insecure, self-educating, sometimes contradictory, and deeply interested in the world around her. The Marilyn I found here feels considerably more complicated—and considerably more human—than the legend.

And honestly, I think that is the Marilyn I have always wanted to know.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars, audiobook. Nobody bothered to ask Marilyn about her reading (or believe her when she told/showed them) so there isn’t much for the author to work with, but this short book is a wonderful antidote to the stereotypical image of Marilyn Monroe as airhead blond. I like books like this that serve as a biography without going into every detail of a person’s life. It changed how I view Marilyn and makes me want to learn more about her.

[Jola Cora · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful book! Gail Crowther is such a great writer, you can count on her to always make the best literary and cultural connections and she will make you laugh on the way too. Loved this book.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. There was not enough material for a full-length book, so much of this felt unnecessary. However, I did learn a lot about Marilyn's reading habits. She makes me proud to be a reader and happy to have a personal library of my own.

[Sophia McQuillan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book and learning about Marilyn Monroe’s library and books. 📚

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not at all surprised that Marilyn read a number of books. I am sad how people portrayed her and how she was viewed throughout her life and deepen in death.

[Bailey Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marilyn And Her Books: The Literary Life Of Marilyn Monroe by by #partner @gallerybooks is a fascinating, engaging, unanticipated, and unique read! This book is truly one of a kind. I wasn't sure what I'd be getting into with this book and worried it might be dry.....but from the start it was gripping. I love how this book explores one of the world's most iconic celebrities through such an intellectual and emotional lense. It not only acknowledges the stereotypes and jokes about Marilyn but dives deep into industry standards. It highlights how Marilyn had to choose between portraying characters that bled hurtful stereotypes into her personal life or not act. Most of all, I was impressed by how book-focused this story was with its detailed consideration of her personal collection and her eclectic reading choices.

#gifted #promo Thank you @gallerybooks #partner for the free books!

[SB · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to enjoy this, but even if Crowther had some interesting things to say about Marilyn I'm not convinced she had anything interesting to say about books.
Overall this feels like a defence of Marilyn as a person, an intelligent, talented, empathetic person; but acknowledging Marilyn's multifaceted nature isn't really new ground is it?
The most interesting parts of this book were the introduction and the list of Marilyn's books at the back. However, there's an interesting caveat about that list. It's organized by genre, though apparently Marilyn didn't impose an organizational system on her bookshelves. Crowther makes the point that you can't tell what someone takes away a book, whether they love or hate it, and sometimes whether they even bothered to read it all the way through. What she doesn't discuss, and what can be insightful, is what books are shelved next to each other. Not always, but it's a starting point, if you're shelving them by association (or what can look willy-nilly to a stranger) and apparently Marilyn did deliberately arrange her shelves though they looked disorganized. If it's lost to history what books were shelved next to each other that's fine, but for the index to have an imposed organizational system tells me almost more about the author than Marilyn.
If that sounds like a critique that's making a mountain out of a molehill it probably is. The problem is that there just wasn't much about Marilyn and her books that wasn't pure speculation, or that wasn't just a defence of Marilyn overall. A pity, because an author who had something to say about the books themselves might have provided far more insight about her.

[Heather Parish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meticulously researched and quite detailed, I enjoyed this glimpse into the often downplayed parts of Monroe’s interests. It offers some speculative context about Monroe’s intellectual life, relationships, and reading context. It humanizes her.

While written with some academic quirks, it is still a quick and engaging read if you are a lover of books and find yourself peering at people’s bookshelves at parties. The list of books in Monroe’s final collection is impressive indeed. I also liked the addition of the photos of Marilyn with books.

While I wouldn’t recommend this particularly to biography fans or film buffs, it may be a good rec for avid readers as obsessed with reading as Marilyn was.

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Publishers for the e-ARC in return for an honest review.

[Kimberly Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book that highlights Marilyn's love of literature. I enjoyed the way the book was structured. You could see the care the author was taking with her legacy. Through main questions, there was room for smaller details to develop. The mix of photos in the chapters was a nice touch! If you know about different actors, screen writers and producers of Hollywood in the 50's, I think this would be an interesting read. Unfortunately, I got lost with the amount of names thrown around. The end of the book has a list of all the books that was in her collection when she passed. I found that to be a great addition!

[Krystyna Salvetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it! I never expected to enjoy to is as much as I did. I remember those photos of Marilyn Monroe with books but I’m as guilty as the next person who just thought, “ Great photo!” without giving the slightest thought to Marilyn as a reader.

I was fascinated by what she read, how much she read, that she moved her books with her from home to home “just like one of us.”

It was also enlightening to read what her contemporaries really thought of her, how she felt about her “image,” and what was real and not real about her.

Thanks to Gallery Books/ Simon & Schuster for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

[Artemis Crescent · Rating 4 out of 5]

The moment I heard about this book, I knew I had to have it.

'Marilyn and Her Books' - the title says it all.

From the blurb: 'Timed to the 100th birthday of Marilyn Monroe comes an investigation into the literary life of the Hollywood icon and actress,' [...] 'In 2026, for her centenary, this book showcases Marilyn Monroe, the reader. Because at the end of her life, it was not her jewels or her furs, her shoes, or dresses that she cared about. It was her books.'

'Marilyn and Her Books: The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe' by Gail Crowther is a very interesting, intriguing, fascinating, psychoanalytical, and comprehensive look into Marilyn's home library, and her love of literature and learning in general.

It is not about Marilyn the Hollywood actress. It is about Marilyn the reader.

Marilyn was nowhere near a dumb blonde stereotype in real life, nor was she a poser, an attention seeker, or a "fake geek girl". She was a bookworm, an intellectual, who would read anything she could get her hands on, through and through. Trying to overcome her lack of education from a hectic, troubled and traumatic childhood, she always strived to improve her mind, as well as her acting talents - her looks were secondary to her. She valued brains over beauty. She clearly had a very sensitive heart and soul, as well.

It is another reason to admire the Hollywood icon and goddess. Who was in fact painfully, tragically human.

It is a side of her that was not allowed or accepted by the popular culture masses. Until now. Hopefully.

'Marilyn and Her Books' also discusses all the writers Marilyn met in her life (it certainly wasn't just Arthur Miller), and the writers who may or may not have met her, but were enchanted and inspired by her all the same - all of whom are too many to count and list.

Then there are the other golden age Hollywood actors and royalty, who were also, in fact, well read bookworms who valued intelligence, such as Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Elizabeth Taylor.

'Marilyn and Her Books' is full of surprises and touches; not least of which are these quotes by Ayn Rand (Marilyn had none of her books in her personal library), in the aftermath of Marilyn's death:


'[...] if there was ever a victim of society, Marilyn Monroe was that victim.' - page 59


Gail Crowther additionally writes of Rand: 'Describing Monroe's upbringing as Jane Eyre-ish, being both "sordid and horrifying," Rand praises Marilyn for having gone through this and still be able to present a radiant benevolence, innocence, and joy. This took, Rand claimed, "a heroism of the highest order." Making her way to the top, once she got there Marilyn discovered that not only was it as horrible as where she had come from, but that it was filled with jealousy and people who delighted in others' misfortune. Rand argued that Marilyn was envied for her goodness, her beauty, her earnestness, and her joy. Like a classic gothic heroine, she did not stand a chance surrounded by such corruption. It was the evils of the current cultural moment. Rand ended her article with a brutal accusation: "Anyone who has ever felt resentment against the good for being the good, and given voice to it, is the murderer of Marilyn Monroe."' - pages 59-60


This is the only positive reference I will ever make regarding Ayn Rand.

I'm so happy 'Marilyn and Her Books' exists - I say this as both a book lover and a fan of Marilyn Monroe.

Beautiful, informative and educational, and a deep, personal, psychological, philosophical, mystical, and ethereal journey - Marilyn would have been relieved and proud of books like 'Marilyn and Her Books: The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe'.

I would love to visit Marilyn's library someday. Though for me, I'd like to visit every library in the world, and every single person's bookshelf...I am a weirdo bookworm.

Now for my reviews of the other Marilyn books in my personal library:


'The Little Book of Marilyn: Inspiration from the Goddess of Glam'

'Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed'

'The Girl: Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch, and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist'

'Marilyn Monroe: By Eve Arnold

'My Story'

'My Sister Marilyn: A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe'

'Making Their Voices Heard: The Inspiring Friendship of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe'


Final Score (for 'Marilyn and Her Books'): 4/5

[Sanjuro · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started well. After the introduction I was ready to be hooked. It went downhill pretty fast. It remained just interesting enough to renew my interest in Marilyn, but not nearly good enough to recommend.

It's much too long - entire chapters shouldn't be here. For example, there is a chapter about writers alive at the same time as Marilyn that she did not read. Um, ok? So, Crowther just randomly picked a few authors and wrote a whole chapter to say, "Oh, and this author? Marilyn didn't read them either." There was another chapter about Marilyn's impact on writers, which included writers who simply mentioned Marilyn in a novel or a poem. "Impact" is a term used generously here.

There is a lot of outright false information in the book, some of it comes across as blatant dishonestly on Crowther's part. For example, when talking about the reaction to Arthur Miller's play "After the Fall," and its apparent depiction of Marilyn, Crowther describes the way that other famous people defended Marilyn. Crowther then describes the way that James Baldwin criticized the play. The problem? There is zero evidence that Baldwin's criticism had anything at all to do with Marilyn. In that Playbill interview, Baldwin does not defend her - he never mentions her in his comments. He simply said he didn't like the play and that he thought Miller was a poor artist.

Crowther is an entertaining writer, but her apologist tone makes her an unfaithful curator of the stories and details. At one point, she accuses Miller of inconsistency when defending After the Fall when his comments were actually consistent, if you follow his logic properly. There are lots of examples like this. I'm a Marilyn fan - I think she deserves to be defended where it counts - but Crowther fawns over Marilyn to a degree that feels untrustworthy. This also lends itself to exhausting redundancies - one would have a hard time counting the number of times Crowther pointed out that Marilyn really actually truly read books! or, the number of times that she restated that Marilyn was smarter than people thought. Ok, true, but we got it the first dozen times.

Finally, the book absolutely needed more photography. At one point Crowther even describes a picture and tells the reader to google it. I know photos are expensive for print books, but some require it, and this was one of those times.

I'm not disappointed that I bought the book. As I said, as 2026 is Marilyn's 100th birthday, the book renewed my interest. I'll spend some time this Summer watching some of Marilyn's best films. But, this book was far more flawed than it had to be.

[Brittney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marilyn and Her Books • Gail Crowther

One phrase: Marilyn Monroe, the reader 📚✨

This is the kind of nonfiction that immediately caught my attention because it looks beyond the image everyone thinks they know.

Marilyn and Her Books explores Marilyn Monroe through her literary life, her reading, her personal library, her self education, and the authors and thinkers who shaped the woman behind the Hollywood icon.

And honestly? I love that focus.

So much of Marilyn’s public story has been flattened into beauty, fame, tragedy, and spectacle, but this book turns the spotlight toward something quieter and more intimate. Her books. Her curiosity. Her hunger to learn. Her desire to keep growing, even when the world kept trying to define her by everything except her mind.

I am always fascinated by books about readers, and this one sounds especially compelling because Marilyn’s personal library tells its own story. She left school before graduation, but she continued educating herself through literature, seeking out ideas, writers, plays, poetry, and conversations that challenged her.

There is something deeply moving about that.

The literary connections also sound so intriguing, from Arthur Miller to Shelley Winters, Dylan Thomas, Christopher Isherwood, Dame Edith Sitwell, and more. But what interests me most is not just who Marilyn knew. It is who she was when she was reading, learning, questioning, and building a private intellectual life away from cameras and headlines.

At the end of her life, it was not the jewels, clothes, furs, or glamour that mattered most.

It was her books.

✨ Tropes and vibes:
📚 books about books
✨ Marilyn Monroe
🎬 Old Hollywood
🖤 literary biography
📝 self education
🌙 private life of an icon
💭 curious women
📖 personal library
🥂 writers and artists
🎞 film history
💛 misunderstood public figures
🕯 thoughtful nonfiction

📚 Read this if you like:
Literary biographies, Old Hollywood history, books about readers, nonfiction about misunderstood women, personal libraries, and stories that look beyond the public image to find the person underneath.

This sounds thoughtful, intimate, and like such a beautiful reminder that Marilyn Monroe was not just an icon. She was a reader.

#MarilynAndHerBooks #GailCrowther #MarilynMonroe #LiteraryBiography #BookReview @Gallery

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

First line: In Western culture there are few people more sought after than Marilyn Monroe.

Summary: Marilyn Monroe has fascinated the world since her film debut and over sixty years since her death. This year marks what would have been her hundredth birthday. In this new book by Gail Crowther, we get a look at one of the most important parts of Marilyn’s life, her books. Having been mocked as the dumb blonde who could not possibly read books like Ulysses, we actually get to see what books she owned and discussed with those around her. Marilyn had a love of reading and thirst for knowledge that reached into all genres, from literature to popular fiction to gardening and sociology. Told through an analysis of her interactions with famous writers, interviews with those who knew her and her personal library we see the reader behind the movie star.

My Thoughts: My interest in Marilyn Monroe started in high school when I read a book by her half-sister, Berniece, called My Sister Marilyn. It is a fascinating look into the personal life and real person behind the movie star persona. I found this book to be similar in that sense. Throughout we are shown a Marilyn who reads, discusses and loved acquiring books. At her death, she had a personal library of over 400 books. Like many readers, we have books we have not read or have started and not finished. Likely Marilyn did the same but the number of tomes is astounding. In the endnotes, we are given a list of the books that were packed away and later sold at auction after Marilyn’s death.

While some chapters feel like speculation, the author also supports many of her claims with quotes from interviews. Many of the people that actually met Marilyn thought her to be an intelligent and kind individual. Unfortunately, today people still assume that the characters she played on screen reflect the real life woman. From everything I have read about her she seemed far from dumb. She was a trailblazer in many aspects of Hollywood. She spent years looking for security and acceptance.

It has been over twenty years since I read my first biography of Marilyn and I still admire her. With all the challenges in her life, she still persevered. After closing this book, I think it is time to start a Marilyn Monroe movie marathon!

[Ellie Breen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book Review: Marilyn and Her Books

Thank you to Gail Crowther for sending me this early copy before release day.

As someone who has adored all her Plath work and who absolutely inhaled Oates’ Blonde, this felt like such a thrill to read. Monroe has always been a figure I find endlessly compelling, a woman with astonishing tenacity and resilience in a world that dismissed her as a joke or reduced her to “jailbait”. What Crowther offers here feels essential to her legacy. She looks past the blonde hair and the dazzling smile and turns instead to Monroe’s shelves, her notes, her private literary world.

Crowther explores Monroe’s personal library with access granted by Jim Gibb, the creative director of her estate. She examines the books Monroe chose to keep, annotate, dog ear and crack the spine of, and how those choices reveal what challenged her, empowered her and encouraged her to become the woman she was. From Joyce’s Ulysses to West’s Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It, the range is striking, yet everything fits together through Monroe’s curiosity and identity. Crowther also traces how Monroe used books as a form of self help and how certain writers shaped her, just as she shaped their understanding of fame, femininity and performance.

I found it fascinating and unexpectedly moving. It is the kind of book I know I will return to, whether to take inspiration from Monroe’s collection or to see how future scholarship continues to speak to her as a serious, committed reader. Crowther restores something that has always been there but rarely acknowledged: Monroe’s hunger for knowledge, her discipline, her intellectual ambition. It reframes her not as an icon to be decoded but as a woman who read with intent and lived with a mind far sharper than the world ever allowed her to show.

The book can be summarised by a beautiful quote on page 234: “opening a book can be like a sudden burst of emotional glitter showering us with nostalgia, and a whole range of emotional attachments. Those pages archive our inner literary journeys.” That is exactly what we get to see here, the literary journey of MM.

5/5

[MKF · Rating 2 out of 5]

For years I have been wanting to learn more about Marilyn's love books and what her library contained. With very little information to be found about the topic I was giving up hope until I saw this book. I was so excited but after a few pages I started to realize that this is not the book I had been imagining. But, this book will probably be the only one to tackle this topic so I had no choice but to read it.
As I read I realized that its biggest issue is there is very little information available about Marilyn's love of reading and her books. There's only enough information that would be great for maybe a magazine article or even a blog. Definitely not enough to fill this 300 page though the author managed too by filling the book with filler. Some of the filler information seems to have very little to no connection to Marilyn or the books she loved. The author could have freed up space by leaving out all the books and genre that Marilyn didn't read or the books she didn't own. She liked what she liked and she may have owned it at one time or read it but never kept it leaving a gap in the information.
Another problem that comes with very little information is that the book is mainly speculation and assumptions. The author makes this obvious with ways she talks about Marilyn throughout the book as if she's guessing. That's the problem when trying to recreate a different Marilyn by the books she may or may not have read or the books she owned. This newer version at times seems to contradict the Marilyn that Marilyn herself created.
I did enjoy the book because I loved learning what books filled her home and the list of known books she read. I didn't enjoy the author's attempt to analyze Marilyn's life and character based on those books. I did like the information about books and readers in general but there's very little new information if you love books. I don't entirely agree that books define you or that stumbling upon a certain book at a certain time is fate. That being said I don't think there are other books focused on this topic so if you want to learn about Marilyn's book you're stuck with this.