Marilyn Monroe, Lover of Books
Marilyn and Her Books: The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe by Gail Crowther (Gallery Books, 2026)
Reviewed by Michael Jimenez
When calendars turned toward the month of June, you may have noticed a small flurry of images and stories surrounding the American icon actress Marilyn Monroe. June first marked Monroe’s one-hundredth birthday. Monroe is one of the few actresses of the past whose legend continues to grow. The Academy Museum in Los Angeles celebrated her centennial with her classic gowns on display. Commonplace items associated with Monroe sell at auctions for thousands of dollars. What might be surprising to some is that among her possessions were at least four hundred books (4). Even those who know of her marriage to Arthur Miller may have underestimated Monroe’s literariness.
Gail Crowther’s Marilyn and Her Books celebrates Monroe by redirecting our attention from the glitz of the Hollywood scene to the intimate and private life of her subject. Crowther presents the reader with the real Marilyn Monroe―the one who would rather get lost in a Dostoevsky novel, whether in the privacy of her home or in her dressing room. In fact, she “favored Russian novels” and adored Dostoevsky (41, 46-7). The literary life was a “safe space” for her where she felt most “comfortable” (5, 7).
Crowther goes beyond cataloguing Monroe’s library. She analyzes Monroe’s reading habits. Monroe clearly thought deeply about what she was reading since she had many “banned books” in her library (42). She would not have accidentally bought these books. The author includes a list of Monroe’s library books organized by genre (253-77). The list reveals just how well-read she really was. Crowther also investigates how many of the books that Monroe owned that she actually read. This includes books that were no longer in her possession when she passed.
One of the most telling aspects of Monroe’s literary life is her marriage to American playwright Arthur Miller, author of Death of the Salesman and The Crucible (161-76). Her marriage to Miller was complicated and ultimately ended in divorce. However, it indicates some of the literary circles that she frequented. Crowther surveys various American writers like Dorothy Parker and Truman Capote and the relations they had with Monroe (133-8). This is a helpful approach because the relationship worked both ways. Unfortunately, some of the writers like Jack Kerouac and Tennessee Williams who were Monroe’s contemporaries were dismissive of her (48-9).
One of the most memorable chapters is Crowther’s comparison of Monroe with some of her contemporary thespians: Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Elizabeth Taylor. What this chapter illuminates is how much these very different actors and actresses all shared “similarities in reading material” (130). They all found comfort and mental stimulation reading books. Elizabeth Taylor even purchased the entire Everyman’s Library in pocket edition for Richard Burton. However, it seems that among those actors, Monroe is the one person from this list most often ridiculed and mocked and not taken seriously.
Monroe was such a good actress that many took the roles she acted as the real thing. She often played silly characters or women valued only for their beauty. The result was not being taken seriously. But as Crowther points out, she was “ironically probably more well read than many of the people passing opinions on her supposed lack of intelligence” (5).
Crowther spends much of the book asking questions about the many pictures of Monroe reading a book and the responses they generate. There are many pictures of her clearly posing with a book for the camera. Others seem more organic, as she is lost in a book in her home or browsing for a new book at a bookstore. Crowther asserts: “We are lucky to have so many images of Marilyn reading or pictured near her books because it helps us recast her as a serious and engaged reader” (89). The whole basis of her study of Monroe is to show that she is not posturing but instead that she was a true bibliophile. However, not everyone is convinced. Very often, the culture seems unable to handle “high art/literature and a beauty from Hollywood” as compatible (82).
One picture features Monroe reading James Joyce’s Ulysses, often considered one of the pinnacles of modern literature. Ulysses has even become a standard to judge intelligence in literary circles. However, because of the perception of Monroe as unintelligent, this photo provides book snobs the opportunity to openly mock and ridicule her. The misogyny of Monroe’s times has its parallel in today’s internet comments. Crowther even lists some of these shameful comments (84-6). The irony is that Monroe did, in fact, own Ulysses and read it, taking her time to really comprehend it―whereas her detractors probably have not. Crowther sadly writes: “This level of misogyny is abhorrent, but it does give real insight into what Marilyn must have faced all her life” (86).
Crowther’s book reveals how times have changed. Today celebrity bibliophiles like Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Dua Lipa are recognized by the literary community for fostering the literary life whether through their social media page, book clubs, or podcasts. As choices for entertainment proliferate, book buying has fallen on hard times, so writers and publishers consider it beneficial to get a boost in book sales from a friendly celebrity. It is too bad that there was no such space for Monroe. She lived at a time when the press would rather ask her about celebrity gossip than ask her who was her favorite Russian novelist.
Crowther’s Marilyn and Her Books is a great place to begin to learn about Monroe’s life. She was more thoughtful and had more philosophical depth than is often recognized. Monroe was a shy and private person who lived in a somewhat modest home, reading from her personal library for pleasure. If you want to find out who the real Marilyn Monroe really is, then look no further than the books she read (244).
Michael Jimenez is an Associate Professor of history at Vanguard University. He is the author of Remembering Lived Lives: A Historiography from the Underside of Modernity and Karl Barth and the Study of the Religious Enlightenment: Encountering the Task of History.
