Things We Saw Today: How Does Your Reading Prowess Compare to Marilyn Monroe’s?

I know, I know! Two Marilyn posts back-to-back. Here’s the thing, she is a fascinating subject for a feminist website, because her life and career knock up against so many different aspects of the feminism conversation, and on the occasion of what would’ve been her 92nd birthday, we want to make sure to celebrate the amazing things about her that were often easily dismissed because of her looks, and because of her job as an actress. Princess wrote a great piece about Monroe’s anti-racist allyship, and I wanted to draw your attention to Monroe’s passion for learning.

While this is an old article, this post from Open Culture has been making the rounds today, and has totally inspired me to compare my reading list to Marilyn’s! According to Open Culture, “The online Monroe fan club Everlasting Star used photographs, interviews, and a Christie’s auction catalogue to come up with a list of more than 400 books in her possession.”

So, of the 424 unique works listed, I’ve read 18. While there’s no guarantee that she’s read every single book in her possession (she may have been like many of us, surrounding herself with books she loved, but never got around to), she certainly had some intriguing taste and clearly valued learning. I’m definitely going to be checking out other titles on this list.

How do you stack up to Marilyn?

• Roseanne Barr apparently begged to keep her show on the air, saying she would do anything to make things right after her now-infamous tweet. The only thing she could do right at this point is to just go away and work on herself. (via The Hollywood Reporter)
• Marvel’s X-Men: Red is trying to revamp the conversation around racism for the Internet/Digital Age. (via io9)
• The classic film about professional women’s baseball, A League of Their Own, left out a lot of queer love stories. (via Longreads)
• In conjunction with the #MeToo survey done by Glamour and GQ we reported on earlier, Glamour also has this piece written by an anonymous male participant forced to reevaluate his sexual past.
• Our pals at Pajiba have some great suggestions for things you should binge-watch this weekend.

Have a great weekend, friends!

(image: public domain)

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