Random Literary Confession

In response to a recent post in which I mentioned that I am thoroughly enjoying my first passage through Anthony Powell's A Dance To The Music of Time, our pal Groovy Vic (operating from her new WordPress digs) dropped this comment:

I meant to ask you, do you ever just read trash? You know, really trashy crap stuff, instead of all that long-haired high-brow stuff?

Ah ha ha, ha! You ask this of a guy who has three volumes of Letterman Top Ten Lists and the Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings practically memorized?

No, rest assured, Vic, I do indeed indulge in teh trash now and again. If you were to visit the library at Orgle Manor and take a peek behind the right-hand comfy-chair, you would spy on one of the lower shelves four or five Tom Clancy novels. I've read Red Storm Rising (my favorite) probably half a dozen times, The Hunt for Red October three or four, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger twice. I also read that one about Agent Clark (or whoever he is) living on the Chesapeake and battling Baltimore drug-scum once, and at least started in on that one where Congress gets wiped out and Jack Ryan becomes President (although I never got beyond the second chapter).

Aaaaaand if that isn't enough, while the jury remained out so long as I stuck to the Richard Sharpe series, after having read both Stonehenge and The Lords of the North, I am now perfectly willing to toss Bernard Cornwell into the trash category as well.

(Oh, and just because Vic brought up the subject, I have started feeling the Siren song of all these books again, especially as vacation is now less than two weeks away. My evening reading at the moment is William Hague's biography of Pitt the Younger, but do you think I'm going to take that to Maine with me? No fear!)

So, who are your favorite trashy authors?