Marilyn Monroe's Favorite Books: A Classic Reading List
Featured products are independently selected and linked to for practicality. If you buy something using a link on this page, She Wore Stars may receive a small share of that sale.
Marilyn Monroe's Favorite Books: A Classic Reading List
August has ended and the weather is beginning to turn. It’s that time of quiet before the arrival of winter; leaves are turning crispy and orange, and pumpkin spice lattes are popping up everywhere.
I think we can all agree that September can be a difficult month, as we ramp up for major holiday season (I consider Halloween a holiday by the way!).
What’s a girl to do?
Curl up with a good book, recommended by the one and only blonde bombshell herself.
Marilyn Monroe’s reading list might surprise you…
What Did They Find in the Marilyn Monroe Book Collection?
One might not think of Marilyn Monroe as a bookworm, but she actually considered literature one of her favorite hobbies. In fact, some argue that she was photographed reading more than she was ever photographed nude.
Knowing this kind of makes the following quote all the more meaningful, doesn’t it?
“Boys think girls are like books, If the cover doesn't catch their eye they won't bother to read what's inside.”
― Marilyn Monroe
Here is just a sampling of selections from her private library:
One of my favorite Marilyn Monroe quotes is, “If I play a stupid girl and ask a stupid question, I've got to follow it through, what am I supposed to do, look intelligent?” That’s a bit of an insight into the way she thought, isn’t it?
Browsing the list of books she had in her library, here are a few of my favorites:
The Great Gatsby (I know its cliche, but it really is the Great American Novel)
Roughing It (Mark Twain's hilarious memoir)
Mythology (Edith Hamilton's classic; great for long road trips because it can be consumed in small doses)
Of Human Bondage (depressing but brilliant)
As I discussed in A Few of Her Favorite Things: Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe’s favorite book was Ulysses. She even posed with the novel in a photo shoot.
I haven’t read the novel, but its author famously said he had placed so many enigmas and puzzles in the piece that it would keep readers arguing over his meaning for centuries.
Clearly, Marilyn Monroe wasn’t a shrinking violet when it came to difficult literature.
You can browse through the list of books found in her library here.
continue your journey into the life of Marilyn Monroe:
Several notes in the spirit of doing the right thing... Marilyn Monroe did NOT endorse any of the products listed here. That said, if you buy from any of the links included above rather than going straight to the vendor site from Google or another search engine, I get a portion of your purchase at no cost to you.
Marilyn Monroe didn’t exactly embrace her image as a dumb blonde. Notably, she once quipped, “He [Arthur Miller] wouldn’t have married me if I had been nothing but a dumb blonde.”