You May Say I'm A Reader: COVER CHARACTERISTIC (#17): MARILYN MONROE

"We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle."

*Cover Characteristic is a book meme hosted by Sugar & Snark. Check it out and participate!

I LOVE Marilyn Monroe, her beauty and her vulnerability, so this week was a great one.

I've tried to choose some of the most original book covers, but of course I couldn't leave behind some of my favorite pictures of her, so I had to have a honorable mentions section too. Oh, well.

Do you like Marilyn Monroe? Of course you do... Which are some of your favorite covers that feature her beautiful face? Tell me in the comments!

6. The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe by Andrew O'Hagan

Summary:

Meet Maf: The hilariously opinionated, well-read, politically scrappy, and complex canine companion to Marilyn Monroe.

In November 1960, Frank Sinatra gave Marilyn Monroe a dog. His name was Mafia Honey, or Maf for short.

Born in the household of Vanessa Bell, brought to the United States by Natalie Wood’s mother, and given as a Christmas present to Marilyn the winter after she separated from Arthur Miller, Maf was with Marilyn for the last two years of her life, first in New York and then in Los Angeles, and he had as much instinct for celebrity and psychoanalysis as he did for Liver Treat with a side order of National Biscuits.

Marylin took him to meet President Kennedy and to Hollywood restaurants, to department stores, to interviews, and to Mexico for her divorce.

Through Maf's eyes, we see an altogether original and wonderfully clever portrait of the woman behind the icon—and the dog behind the woman.

5. The Marilyn Monroe Story by Joe Franklin

Summary:

This is a new release of the rare and very collectable first book entirely devoted to Marilyn Monroe.

This edition includes all of the original text and photos.

"The Marilyn Monroe Story. The Intimate Inside Story of Hollywood's Hottest Glamour Girl" was the first book written exclusively about Marilyn Monroe. It was originally published in 1953 by the Rudolph Field Company. It was published as a Hardcover with a color dust jacket and also as a Paperback. The original book was 63 pages with 39 gorgeous black and white photos of Marilyn Monroe.

The author, Joe Franklin, is still a renowned talk show icon who started his career in New York over half a century ago. In 1953 he worked closely with M. M. on what was to become the first biography of Norma Jean Baker who, at the time, was just 27 years old.

The casual remark, “It’s about time someone wrote the real story about Marilyn Monroe” led to the writing of this book. It reveals the heart and soul of the girl who surely is America’s sweetheart and heartthrob. Her struggles for success and her studied endeavors to achieve happiness is told in a simple, frank, always warm manner. Just the way Marilyn would want it to be told.

The book is at home with Miss Monroe from her early childhood until her appearance in the movie “How To Marry A Millionaire.” As you read, you’ll laugh and sigh with the pretty, plucky girl who cracked the hard shell of Hollywood to become one of the greatest box office stars.

4. Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe by Anthony Summers

Summary:

Marilyn Monroe. Her rollar-coaster life. Her deception - shrouded death. Her divided secret life. Her legion of lovers. Her intimacies with JFK and Bobby Kennedy. Her mafia connections.

This is the one book that tells the whole naked, deeply moving truth about the all - too-beautiful talented, and tormented woman who played a role in public and in private that was too much for flesh and spirit to survive.

3. Blonde: A Novel by Joyce Carol Oates

Summary:

In her most ambitious work to date, Joyce Carol Oates boldly reimagines the inner, poetic, and spiritual life of Norma Jeane Baker -- the child, the woman, the fated celebrity and idolized blonde the world came to know as Marilyn Monroe.

In a voice startlingly intimate and rich, Norma Jeane tells her own story of an emblematic American artist -- intensely conflicted and driven -- who had lost her way.

A powerful portrait of Hollywood's myth and an extraordinary woman's heartbreaking reality, "Blonde" is a sweeping epic that pays tribute to the elusive magic and devastation behind the creation of the great twentieth-century American star.

2. Unfinished: A Graphic Novel of Marilyn Monroe by Elizabeth Periale

Summary:

Why does Marilyn Monroe continue to be our iconic American goddess? A question explored in “Unfinished.”

In words and pictures author and illustrator Elizabeth Periale brings a new perspective to Marilyn Monroe. "Unfinshed” focuses on Marilyn from a female perspective, including touching on her many health issues.

This graphic novel also shines a light on Marilyn's gifts as an actress, a talent that tends to be side-stepped in the many previous and sensational accounts of her life and death.

1. Marilyn's Red Diary by E.Z. Friedel

Summary:

Marilyn's Red Diary is shocking, funny, scandalous and sad but always brutally honest.

Marilyn Monroe is caught between intellectual giants - her award-winning playwright husband Arthur Miller and her dashing politician boyfriend Jack. Then along comes Jack's fiery brother Bobby.

The world's dream girl relates her intimate adventures with many of the era's who's who.

Marilyn's Red Diary is a touching portrait of a hard-working, extremely bright woman, trapped in her own sensuality and, tragically, born far ahead of her time.