Marilyn and Her Booksby Gail Crowther
Crowther attempts to debunk Marilyn Monroe’s dumb-blonde reputation by way of her private library: The star owned over 400 books ranging from “The Little Engine That Could,” by Watty Piper (possibly bearing her juvenile scrawl), to “Look Homeward, Angel” and other works by Thomas Wolfe, to Russian literature. (She hoped to play Grushenka in a movie version of “The Brothers Karamazov.”) Sensitive about not graduating from high school, Monroe studied world literature in an adult-extension program at U.C.L.A. “If you are ignorant, books won’t laugh at you,” she said poignantly. Read our review.