Biographies are a girl’s best friend.

For a slice of life that offers up Monroe at her best and brightest, look no further.

It seeks to give her agency, while also picking apart what he sees as undiagnosed bipolar disorder.

Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox Hardcover – July 17, 2012 by Lois Banner

Bloomsbury USA

He uses the lens of modern psychology to understand what ultimately made Marilyn a tragic figure.

If you truly want to understand Marilyn in her own words, this is the book.

Marilyn in Manhattan: Her Year of Joy Hardcover – March 14, 2017 by Elizabeth Winder

Flatiron Books

My week with Marilyn Hardcover – January 1, 2000by Colin Clark

HarperCollins

The Girl: Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch, and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist Hardcover – Illustrated, May 8, 2018 by Michelle Morgan

Running Press Adult

Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters Paperback – Illustrated, October 16, 2012 by Marilyn Monroe (Author), Bernard Comment

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Marilyn: Norma Jeane by Gloria Steinem

From the Private Archive of Marilyn Monroe by Lois Banner and Mark Andersen

Harry N. Abrams