https://www.biblio.com/blog/2022/05/marilyn-monroes-reading-list-a-genuine-book-lover/
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Marilyn Monroe
Sophienoire — 9 months ago(July 06, 2025 07:17 PM)
https://www.biblio.com/blog/2022/05/marilyn-monroes-reading-list-a-genuine-book-lover/
Marilyn Monroe’s Reading List: A Genuine Book Lover
3 years ago by Saila Marcos
Besides being a Hollywood icon, Marilyn Monroe harbored a profound love for literature. Her personal library, comprising over 400 books, spanned diverse literary genres and authors, reflecting her intellectual curiosity. This facet of Monroe’s life reveals her devotion to the written word and challenges the simplistic narratives often associated with her.
The actress had a book collection of over 400 books. She was passionate about poetry and she found refuge and comfort in their stories.
When Marilyn Monroe’s book collection was put up for auction at Christie’s in 1999 a new and surprising side of the artist arose. Not that her interest in reading was unknown, but her literary taste was more of a mystery.
Marilyn Monroe’s personal library
Her library had more than 400 books carefully curated by an avid and conscientious reader. The titles covered a wide spectrum of interests – especially poetry – but also American contemporary literature, politics, religion, and psychology.
She was fond of James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, and Walt Whitman. She was acquainted with writers such as Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, Saul Bellow, and Carl Sandburg.
In Biblio, you can find an interesting inscribed copy of Miller’s collected plays from the library of Xenia J. Chekhov, the second wife of Michael Chekhov, who was the nephew of Anton Chekhov and Marilyn Monroe’s acting teacher. Miller mentions how important Marilyn was in his comprehension of Mr. Chekhov.
Throughout her life, Monroe struggled to be taken seriously beyond her Hollywood career and the characters she played. Many claimed Eve Arnold’s famous pictures of her reading Ulysses in a Long Island park were staged.
The photographer, who knew her pretty well, firmly differed from this biased assumption: Marilyn had been reading James Joyce’s masterpiece for a while when the shot took place.
Later on, we acknowledge many of her intellectual quests and writing skills in Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters edited by Stanley Buschthal and Bernard Comment. In the pages of this book, Marilyn reveals herself as a woman for whom reading, especially poetry, was a lifesaver.
Books in Marylin Monroe’s Library
The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers
Carson MacCullers’ collection of short stories was published in 1951. You can find signed and inscribed copies, as well as first editions on Biblio. McCullers and Monroe met in 1955 in a hotel in New York City, and they shared a friendship for quite some time.
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Brendan Gill and Dorothy Parker
A compilation of all the texts written by and about the American journalist, writer, and poet. You can find first editions of this book in Biblio’s vast library.
The Little Disturbances of Man by Grace Paley
Only a few titles written by women were found in Marilyn Monroe’s book collection. One of them was the first volume of Paley’s short stories, in which the writer explores the little tribulations that lie behind our daily life. Check out signed copies and first editions.
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats
As one of her favorite poets, Monroe usually quoted Yeats in her personal letters or read his poems aloud. Her love for the genre was so that some of her lyrical writing surfaced in 2010 when Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters was released. This collection of Yeats’ works is indispensable for any poetry lover.
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
She also kept in her library a copy of the influential Beat novels. The book was first published by Viking in 1957, only five years before she was found dead, which shows Monroe’s interest in contemporary literary production.
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
Set in Monterey, California, Tortilla Flat was one of Steinbeck’s earliest novels. It was published in 1935 and later turned into a film in 1942 starring Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr. Maybe a coincidence or not, a detailed look through her library shows her interest in books adapted into films.
Monroe’s personal library also included
The Short Reign of Pippin IV
and
Once There Was a War
, both written by Steinbeck.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Many European contemporary classics were also listed in Monroe’s literary legacy. Besides Flaubert’s masterpiece, she kept books written by Marcel Proust, Alexander Dumas, and Federico García Lorca. Albert Camus’ The Fall was also in her library.
Balthazar by Lawrence Durrell
The second novel of Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet. Published in 1958, it’s set in Egypt during the Second World War. Find signed copies and other collectible copies of the Quartet on Biblio.com
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Faulker himself once described The Sound and the Fury, his fourth novel, as “the greatest I’ll ever write.” This book is a classic example of Southern gothic literature. In 1998, the Modern -
sheetsadam1 — 9 months ago(July 06, 2025 07:45 PM)
Interesting! A shame that she never got the chance to star in any of the many Tennessee Williams adaptations Hollywood was making back then.
The fact that she was an Ian Fleming fan is intriguing also, since her lover JFK was as well. I wonder if one of them introduced the other to his work?
Draft Barron Trump -
JohnnyBoy — 9 months ago(July 07, 2025 08:38 PM)
I don't believe that. She wasn't intelligent to begin with. I read somewhere that Brando amassed a huge library of books, but he was certainly dyslexic.
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soapbox original gangster — 9 months ago(July 08, 2025 03:31 AM)
I done read sun, gats, years.
I once found a readers guide to Finnegan's wake and used it as a way into Joyce. This book was so difficult and also so shrill in pointing out my deficiency in literary allusions, codes, ciphers and what not that I swore off instantly any attempt to read Joyce.
Flaubert if alive can blow us all with this garbage.
Faulkner is unreadable to me.
Schrodinger's Cat walks into a bar, and doesn't. 