After making the decision to collect the Virago special edition Modern Classics, the second one I came across after the rather wonderful Excellent Women (thoroughly charming!) was Valley of the Doll's ,and if I'm absolutely honest it's reputation went before it and left me suspecting that the chances of me enjoying it were about as slim as me wanting to take to my bed with a bedside table heaving with pulp fiction of Jackie Collin's ilk...
But I was wrong. Yet again my inner literary snob (she who read's Heat!) came over all tutty and huffy and successfully managed to keep me apart from a book that has had me using matchsticks to prop up my eyelids for the past two evenings, so gripping it is in a falling apart in the golden era of Hollywood kinda way...
Dear Readers, I wish I was capable of writing an intelligent analysis of the books I recommend to you, but I'm not very bright and thus it is mere enthusiasm I have to rely on to tell you that HERE IS A BOOK I AM ABSOLUTELY LOVING (a book that bears no relation to the film, let it be said here and now!)... 

It's trashy and it's sad and it's fabulous. And yep there's sex, drugs and the Vintage Hollywood/Broadway equivalent of rock and roll, but in this day and age it's potency is diluted and it excesses oddly quaint.

I insist you love it as much as I do.

(P.S: As far as I can tell, the  edition above with it's cover designed by Barbara Hulanicki of Biba fame is not available stateside, but what the heck... in both the case of Valley and the Doll's and Excellent Women it's what's inside that counts, so seek out the oh so kitsch glossy lips edition of The Dolls if you dare...)