“Nothing is more impotent than an unread library,” John Waters once said, but the cult film director doesn’t only read books—he writes them, too. The auteur behind such enduring cult classics as Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Polyester, and Hairspray, Waters has published five books including his 2014 travelogue, Car Sick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America. His home in Baltimore is stuffed with books—8,000 by his count—and that number can only rise. In a June 2015 interview with Huffington Post he offered a pithy definition of being rich: “You could buy every book you want without looking at the price.”

Below are John Waters’s favorite books, available to purchase as a set or individually.