I was all set to be snotty and dismissive about Valley of the Dolls, until I read this review on GoodReads. Now, I’m going to have to go reread the thing.
The first two vampire books by Anne Rice - “Interview with a Vampire” and “the Vampire Lestat” are actually fun, trashy reads. It’s only in the third book of the series that Rice’s egomania began rearing it’s ugly head, and the stories became increasingly schizophrenic and self-important. Also worth checking out is the “Erotic Adventures of Sleeping Beauty” that Rice wrote under a psuedonym - A.N. Rocquefort.
And there’s always “the Happy Hooker” by Xaviera Hollander.
Oh man, I knew I could count on you guys to come up with some real trash. 
I’m printing out this thread and heading over to the used book store this afternoon–keep 'em coming!
So far with quick scans on Amazon, Mandingo is exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for, and Kathleen Woodiwiss, Sidney Sheldon, and Harold Robbins all look like excellent candidates.
For unbelievable class ridden, English, utter, utter trash there are the Jilly Cooper books - Riders, Rivals, and Polo.
OK - my girlfriend loved them. That’s my sole defense.
This is only worth checking out if your idea of “trashy” is S&M porn, and I don’t mean soft bodice-ripper porn, I mean hard-core porn, with much spanky.
Not being judgey, but it’s worth noting that’s what Rice’s Beauty books are, because some people might not want to buy them. Or may want to buy them right away. 
The books you mentioned in your first post are all favorites, so I’m not surprised you’ve read Big Earl T.
Another trashy page-turner is Celebrity by Thomas Thompson – it’s not pre-70’s though, more like late 70’s, I think. I took it with me to Lincoln Park one summer day and put the kids in the pool. Didn’t let them get out until I’d finished the book. Could not put it down. The kids were quite wrinkly.
Damn, somebody beat me to God’s Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell.
I haven’t read it since high school and I still remember the male character who was so irresistible that his wife’s teenaged sister had sex with him and his wife, her sister, forgave her because he was just so manly that no woman had the power to resist him. I think Erskine Caldwell was in love with the character, too.
Hey, how about Candy, by Terry Southern? IIRC, it’s got a dumb blonde, loads of goofy sex scenes and a handy 70s-style guru.
If your still in the mood after Woodiweis, try Shirlee Busbee’s Gypsy Lady (not any of the other countless Gypsy Girl, Gypsy Woman, Gypsy Pirate. . .).
Trashy smut? My Secret Garden compiled by Nancy Friday. Not a novel and definetly erotica.
How about The Kent Family Chronicles starting with The Bastard by John Jakes?
Man, this is making me miss trading books with my girlfriends in high school. Not that I was in high school in the '70s. Well, not all of high school. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Why 70’s and earlier only? I’m currently reading a fantastically trashy fantasy author (M.J. Putney), who has hot love scenes every other page, and is a very engaging writer (she’s going to become a classic trashy novel writer, I believe). Her stuff is current, though.
I can’t really explain. I think mostly it’s a stylistic thing, but partly novelty factor, and partly because all through the next month I’m working in a public place, and it’s fun to see the reaction when someone sees you reading a trashy book they recognize but haven’t seen someone reading in a decade or two. That’s why it’s “Classic* Trashy Novels Month” and not just “Trashy Novels Month”
*Is “vintage” a more apt qualifier? I dunno. I don’t want just old, but old and famous.
For horror, John Saul. Marilyn French also wrote “The Women’s Room” - classic trashy FEMINIST novel.
I didn’t even think about horror. Flowers in the Attic then. 
Robinson isn’t exactly good. But pretty dang trashy, in a hardback without scantily clad people on the front, kind of way.
I read a good smutty book years ago, I think it was called The Tutor, about a Regency-era country home, IIRC, and all of the hanky-panky among the lord and lady of the manor, their young daughter and the servants. Anybody else remember it? Haven’t been able to find it online anywhere.
Just thought of another fun read described as a “minor classic”. IQ 83 by Arthur Herzog. The United States is struck by a virus that makes everybody dumb.
I’m also posting here because I wanna see more trashy classics. Please?
God, I love that book. How can you not like a book where they capture an albino down by the swamp and keep him in a pit, hoping he’ll bring good luck? And doesn’t Ty Ty at one point claim that a truly sexy woman makes you get down on your knees, bark like a dog and want to lick something? Beautiful stuff.
Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson is another good one. Every kind of comical lechery, gluttony, sloth and violence imaginable.
As Jodi points out, Wifey is a great trashy read, although make sure you get Wifey, because most of Judy Blume’s stuff is for children.
If you really want shock 'em, get La vie sexuelle de Catherine M, an explicit biographical piece by noted Parisian art critic Catherine Millet. Recently translated, I believe. Not trashy, really, but a fairly shocking read.
Is that fiction?
…Sounds like another trip to Smith Family Books is in order
I went today and for $15 picked up eight pieces of absolutely value-less reading–awesome. Well, actually one’s Lonesome Dove, I’m not sure where that fits in, but I’ve never read it and it was two bucks. Also The Executioner’s Song, by Norman Mailer, because, well, what the hell. I also didn’t find Mandingo, which I really wanted, but I did pick up another book by the same author, which had this on the back cover to recommend it:
And claims to be:
"MORE TERRIBLE, MORE WONDERFUL,
THAN THE UNFORGETTABLE
MANDINGO
I picked up Memories of Another Day by Harold Robbins, The Sands of Time, Sidney Sheldon. I also discovered that there are two new books in the Earth’s Children series, joy!
Nobody’s mentioned the classic: Erica Jong’s “Fear of Flying.” The novel that gave us the term “Zipless Fuck.”
That says it all.