Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: Memories of Marilyn Monroe

50 years after her death, the life Marilyn Monroe continues to spark curiosity and interest. Learn more about the late actress with these biographies.

Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters is a collections of written artifacts in Marilyn's own handwriting. The bits of text including notes jotted in notebooks and on hotel letterhead, reveal a woman who deeply loved acting and strove to perfect her craft.

Marilyn Monroe: The Final Years traces the final two years of the star's life including her relationship with JFK, her incarceration in a mental asylum, and her exploitation by mobsters.

The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe profiles the life of the iconic actress touching on subjects including her mentally ill mother, her estranged father, Marilyn's own struggles with mental illness, and her relationship with the Kennedys.

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5

"Being Mortal is about the limitations of what modern medicine can provide for people as their lives draw to a close. Gawande argues that the objective of medicine should not merely be treatment and survival; medical care should also ensure dignity in death and having control over one's final moments. He argues that instead of aggressively fighting the inescapable realities of aging, we should ask the hard questions of ourselves and our loved ones -- What makes life worth living? When should we try to extend our lives, and when should we choose a better quality of our remaining days over extending their quantity?

This book is difficult to read. Not because of the way Gawande writes -- his style is highly engaging, and he never lapses into excessively scientific jargon or overly simplistic explanations -- but because of the tough subject matter. Gawande draws on his own experiences as a doctor and peppers his book with honest and humane stories of his patients, friends, and family; the stories he tells make the book more accessible, and also more heartbreaking. (And that's not a bad thing.)

No one likes to think about their loved ones', or their own, impending mortality. But it's important to have these hard conversations, because as Gawande says, "endings matter." - Amanda

Memories of Marilyn Monroe

No comments:

Post a Comment