And here we come, at last, to the selection closest to my dark and twisty heart, Margaret Mitchell's hideous bitch-goddess of a novel, Gone With the Wind. It's awful! It's wonderful! It's Marlboro Reds. Apparently, in a 2008 poll, it clocked in at second place (behind The Bible) as the favorite book of the American people. If that doesn't explain your local news reports, what will? READ MORE

We here at Classic Trash love Philippa Gregory, dearly. We love The Wise Woman, which involved a lot of zombie candle-wax creatures who stabbed fetuses; we love her attempt to get into the mind-grapes of each and every one of Henry VIII's wives and female relations (okay, not all of them, but the interesting ones); but most of all, we love Wideacre. (We're sticking here to the first book of the trilogy, so hold your thoughts on The Favored Child and Meridon for the time being.) READ MORE

Shiver of happiness. Oh, Awl-My-Children, of all the trashy books we've enjoyed so far, Margaret George's The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes By His Fool, Will Somers is the one I have read most often. That's just sad, I know, but my favorite kind of trash is thinly sourced historical fiction. Extremely long and convoluted, thinly sourced historical fiction. How many of us arrived in college, planning to formally study our preferred era, only to discover that Gone With the Wind is an Un-Book and that no reputable university will allow you to write a dissertation on which of Henry VIII's wives is your imaginary bestie and why? Philippa Gregory is not an acceptable source, trust. READ MORE

Oh. Oh. WHAT could be more delightful? You've read it, of course. It's... oh, I can't even describe it. It's a delight. A melodramatic, delightful delight. Do you have a guest room? Put this next to the bed. Were you one of the many young people who became a classics major as a direct result of The Secret History? Put this next to your threadbare futon with the soy sauce stains on it. Donna Tartt: kicking ass and ruining lives since 1992. READ MORE

It is rare for Classic Trash to revisit a series. One cannot step into the same attic of flowers or coven of teen witches twice, as Heraclitus of Ephesus so memorably told us. But in a case like this, where our intrepid Ayla came so far without… actually coming at all… it behooves the society of great readers to follow her to Over The Top Pleasure Mountain. We owe it to her, guys. READ MORE

The first time I read Colleen McCullough's The Thorn Birds, I was about eleven years old and volunteering as a library-cart-girl at an old folks' home. Please save your praise on the latter point; even at the age of eleven I knew I wasn't going to get into a decent college from a Canadian hick town without performative volunteer work. I was there to use the elderly, not to serve them. Anyway, the first thing you learn about old people when engaged in such an act of questionable good works is: Old People Read Smut. They do! They love it. I could not keep anything vaguely bodice-rippy in stock. Hey, struggling novelists of America: write some Depression-themed erotica and just wait for the Werther's Original-scented twenties to start rolling in. READ MORE

How in the world is it that I am just now reading Clan of the Cave Bear for the first time? Isn't that wild? I have so much to say about it I could burst. Let's get one thing straight: we have zero interest in the book's historical accuracy. As far as plot summary, let's just go with: "totally totally a legitimate description of a bangin' Cro-Magnon blonde successfully infiltrating a group of fugly Neanderthals and being all Katniss Everdeen connnnnnnstantly until the World's Worst Pre-Human boots her out because he's threatened by powerful women with the ability to verbalize their emotions." THAT OLD STORY, RIGHT? READ MORE

Just once, gentlest of readers, I would like to crack open a YA novel and see our heroine getting ready for a party. I would like to see her getting HERSELF ready for a party, and then I would like her to look in the mirror and say "damn, I look fiiiiine, as per usual." READ MORE

This isn't Peyton Place, kids. Confessions of a Shopaholic isn't even strictly "Classic," but, as a reader pointed out last time, it's 11 years old now, and, honestly, that makes it basically Jude the Obscure, right? It's older than Facebook, so deal. READ MORE

I know, I said we were doing Fear of Flying. I said! But, I'm gonna level with you, I figured it would wind up in an Unpleasant Internet Scuffle, because Erica Jong is more likely to get squiffy with me than Jackie Collins. She just is! And I'm a little gun-shy after the MacGyver Rage Incident. Also, whenever I think about Fear of Flying, I think about her husband always leaving skid marks in his underwear (or was it on the sheets? I think it was on her sheets), and, ew. READ MORE