-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder
by John Waters
No one knows more about everything―especially everything rude, clever, and offensively compelling―than John Waters.
The man in the pencil-thin mustache, auteur of the transgressive movie classics Pink Flamingos, Polyester, the original Hairspray, Cry-Baby, and A Dirty Shame, is one of the world's great sophisticates, and in Mr. Know-It-All he serves it up raw: how to fail upward in Hollywood; how to develop musical taste from Nervous Norvus to Maria Callas; how to build a home so ugly and trendy that no one but you would dare live in it; more important, how to tell someone you love them without emotional risk; and yes, how to cheat death itself. Through it all, Waters swears by one undeniable truth: "Whatever you might have heard, there is absolutely no downside to being famous. None at all."
Studded with cameos of Waters' stars, from Divine and Mink Stole to Johnny Depp, Kathleen Turner, Patricia Hearst, and Tracey Ullman, and illustrated with unseen photos from Waters's personal collection, Mr. Know-It-All is Waters's most hypnotically readable, upsetting, revelatory book―another instant Waters classic.
"An exuberantly transgressive American filmmaker gets down, dirty, and weird about life, art, and career...Wickedly smart and consistently laugh-out-loud funny." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Though not quite as surreal, Waters's musings are as funny and eccentric as his films; longtime fans will be delighted with the treasure trove of insights into his brilliant oeuvre." - Publishers Weekly
"Nothing can squelch [Waters'] outrageous imagination...If you don't laugh loud and often, check your pulse, then your breath on a mirror." - Booklist
"For once and future Waters fans." - Library Journal
This information about Mr. Know-It-All was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
John Waters' books Role Models and Carsick were national bestsellers, and his spoken-word shows This Filthy World and A John Waters Christmas continue to be performed around the world. Indecent Exposure, a retrospective exhibition of Waters's acclaimed artwork, was recently shown at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio.
If you liked Mr. Know-It-All, try these:
Stop Me If You've Heard This One
by Kristen Arnett
Published 2026
From the New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things, a sparkling and funny new novel of entertainment, ambition, art, and love.
by Rion Amilcar Scott
Published 2020
The World Doesn't Require You announces the arrival of a generational talent, as Rion Amilcar Scott shatters rigid genre lines to explore larger themes of religion, violence, and love - all told with sly humor and a dash of magical realism.
by Samantha Hunt
Published 2019
Moored in a coastal fishing town so far north that the highways only run south, the unnamed narrator of The Seas is a misfit.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
