Narrow Rooms by James Purdy “A salaciously satisfying novel that’s a great read, especially if you’re having a sexual nervous breakdown.” -JW

The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan by Jimmy McDonough “The astonishing career of Andy Mulligan, the most pitifully damaged and insane film director whose personal life made Ed Wood’s look like a walk in the park.” -JW Isn’t now the perfect time to bring it back and turn it into a Broadway musical?” -John Waters The Beard: A Play by Michael McClure “Jean Harlow and Billy the Kid meet up and have sex in this absurdist pop art play that used to get busted for obscenity. The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq (Author), Gavin Bowd (Translator)

Platform by Michel Houellebecq and Frank Wynne It’s a crime this book has gone out of print.” -JW Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant by Philip Hoare “Aubrey Beardsley, Ronald Firbank, Denton Welch – believe me this ultimate British eccentric made them all seem butch. Suicide in the Entertainment Industry by David K. The Ravishing of Lol Stein by Marguerite Duras (Author), Richard Seaver (Translator) He’s a leader, a radical and his sexual horror stories are smart as hell.” -JW The Sluts by Dennis Cooper “The novelist Dennis Cooper has always made other gay writers nervous.

The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley My Prizes: An Accounting by Thomas Bernhard “Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth! The Austrian intellectual sourpuss hilariously rejects every literary award he was ever given.

In addition to his screenwriting credits for transgressive cult classics Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Cry-Baby, and Hairspray, Waters has also authored several books, including a 2014 travelogue chronicling his hitchhiking adventures across America.īelow is a selection of John Waters’ favorite books. And his highly quotable love for books – “nothing is more impotent than an unread library” – has left his Baltimore home bursting with over 8,000 titles.īut the cult icon doesn’t just read books – he writes them, too. If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck ’em.” Infamously known as the Prince of Puke, Sultan of Sleaze and Pope of Trash, this eccentric filmmaker does it best – outrageous and sardonic storytelling like no other. John Waters once said, “We need to make books cool again.

Crackpot the obsessions of john waters