He has an expansive, and very seriously considered, art collection - even if a lot of it is funny and some of it is, in his words, “ugly.” (He likes brown art, he said, for that very reason.) “Can you go wrong in collecting monkey art?” he asks, unrhetorically, in a meticulously researched chapter in his new book, “Mr. Waters, the filmmaker, author, performer and bon vivant of bad taste. “Whenever I come to my New York apartment, I have to become the installer I put on my white gloves, take everything out - because there’s a lot of floor art, and it’s the enemy of cleaning people,” said Mr. Waters’s scatological legacy with Divine in “Pink Flamingos.” The very realistic poop was a must, given Mr. It was all art, of course - the rubble handmade by the Swiss artists Fischli/Weiss, the box an objet from the New Museum’s gift shop, and the mousetrap, one of several trompe l’oeil pieces by Doug Padgett, whose stopped clock and faux light switch also trip up Mr. He gestured to the floor, which was arrayed with what looked like construction rubble, a cardboard box with packing peanuts spilling out, a mousetrap.

Suicide in the Entertainment Industry by David K.“Watch where you step,” John Waters said gleefully, as he opened the door to his West Village apartment.

The Ravishing of Lol Stein by Marguerite Duras (Author), Richard Seaver (Translator).

The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp.

Darkness and Day by Ivy Compton-Burnett.

The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley.

My Prizes: An Accounting by Thomas Bernhard (Author), Carol Janeway (Translator).It all amounts to a full library, and according to Ohn that means you’re more than likely to get lucky.īelow is a selection of John Waters’ favourite books, or as we’re calling it, ‘the reading list to get you laid’.

While some books remain firmly in his perceived wheelhouse, such as Cooper’s The Sluts and Jean Rhys’ Good Morning, Midnight others are a little more out of leftfield such as the biography of Cambodian tyrant Pol Pot. Waters’ 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 “you’re having a sexual nervous breakdown”, while also declaring undying love for his idol and David Bowie inspiration, Jean Genet Having written several books alongside his screenplays for cult-classic titles such as Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Cry-Baby, and Hairspray, it’s fair to assume he has good taste.

The john waters collection