{"id":186901,"date":"2025-06-15T17:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T17:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/186901\/"},"modified":"2025-06-15T17:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T17:33:09","slug":"john-waters-weird-and-wonderful-reading-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/186901\/","title":{"rendered":"John Waters\u2019 weird and wonderful reading list"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n

Sun 15 June 2025 17:36, UK <\/p>\n

A wise man once said, \u201cWe need to make books cool again\u201d. This poignant message is built on the foundations of learning, the pursuit of knowledge, and the broadening of one\u2019s horizons. The same wise and practical man continued, \u201cIf you go home with somebody and they don\u2019t have books, don\u2019t fuck \u2019em\u201d. Thus, the quest to find the legendary reading list of the wise man, the iconic John Waters, began. <\/p>\n

John Waters\u2019 reading list is as wide-ranging and captivating as the man himself. It hints at his creative urges, his obsessions, and that restless pursuit of knowledge that\u2019s always driven him past the obvious and into the odd corners of art and culture, where the real fun begins.<\/p>\n

The pursuit of bed-worthy literature feels fitting for Waters, a man known as the Prince of Puke, the Sultan of Sleaze, and \u2013 our personal favourite \u2013 the Pope of Trash.<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s not just filth for filth\u2019s sake. Waters reads the way he films: with one eye on the gutter and the other on the stars. His shelves groan under the weight of highbrow lowlifes, perverse poetry, political horror shows and queer misfits who never got the clean Hollywood ending. It\u2019s the kind of library that makes you feel clever and corrupt at the same time\u2026a perfect bloody storm of sleaze and sophistication.<\/p>\n

Waters has always had a love for books and a desire for everyone to engage in his wild love affair alongside him. It jumps head first into the power of words for a sordid intellectual orgy, because \u201cnothing is more impotent than an unread library\u201d. Below is just a selection of his claimed 8,000-book-strong library in Baltimore, and it\u2019s a fascinating list.<\/p>\n

Having written several books alongside his screenplays for cult-classic titles such as Pink Flamingos<\/a>, Female Trouble, Cry-Baby, and Hairspray, it\u2019s fair to assume he has good taste. And he does, thankfully. <\/p>\n

Waters\u2019 often expressed his love for the subversive and his book choice is no different, he marks out Andy Milligan as a preferred filmmaker in the list, and also says James Purdy is great if \u201cyou\u2019re having a sexual nervous breakdown\u201d, while also declaring undying love for his idol and David Bowie inspiration, Jean Genet<\/p>\n

While some books remain firmly in his perceived wheelhouse, such as Cooper\u2019s The Sluts and Jean Rhys\u2019 Good Morning, Midnight others are a little more out of leftfield such as the biography of Cambodian tyrant Pol Pot. It all amounts to a full library, and according to Ohn, that means you\u2019re more than likely to get lucky.<\/p>\n

Below is a selection of John Waters\u2019 favourite books collected by Radical Reads,<\/a> or as we\u2019re calling it, \u2018the reading list to get you laid\u2019.<\/p>\n

John Waters\u2019 favourite books:<\/p>\n