I was optimistic when I ran Richard Wilson’s engagingly silly ‘10 Books Not To Read Before You Die’ piece that it would raise a few smiles in a week dominated by grim news from Wall Street.

What I didn’t expect the piece to reveal was the heartfelt passion so many Times Online readers hold for books.

There were scores of funny, vehement and sometimes inflammatory comments posted both on the original story and on the wealth of blogs and news aggregators that picked the story up. I’ve read them all, and distilled from them a list of the books most of you seem to feel should have been included.

1: Atlas Shrugged

The book most frequently mentioned by readers. Atlas Shrugged is a dauntingly gigantic brick of novel by Ayn Rand. It’s technically a science fiction work, in as much as it’s set in a parallel or future world that’s subtly different from our own. There are no spacecraft or ray guns though, just a lengthy rumination on industrial relations. The titanic novel is one of the longest ever written, and is fittingly Rand’s last before she turned her fierce intellgence to works of pure philosophy. One game commenter on Fark.com tells us “I tried on 4 separate occasions to try to read it, at least a year apart. Never made it past page 89 on any try” Despite its reputation for indigestibility Atlas Shrugged still sells consistently, some half a century after its publication.

2: The Leopard

One of two philosophical treatises from the 1950s masquerading as novels, Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s the Leopard was widely criticised on publication for its jaundiced view of the Roman Catholic church but also praised by the critics and considered popular enough to warrant a Hollywood film adaptation.

3:The Castle

Several Franz Kafka titles were nominated but the Castle won out. The Castle earned particular disapprobation though for its gloomy, alienated narrative about some sort of cryptic planning permission dispute. Reader Surajit Som of New Delhi sees it as a “Great remedy for insomnia”.

4: Catch 22

A surprise hate-list placing for Joseph Heller’s acerbic look at the madness and futility of war. As Tim Murray from London puts it: “The one obvious missing book is Catch 22 - what in God’s name is that all about?”

5: Catcher in the Rye

Innovative stream of consciousness look into the turmoil of the adolescent mind? Or adolescent claptrap where style overcomes storytelling? Kurt, from Maryland USA was one of the readers troubled by the absence of Salinger’s bestseller from the list, describing it as “Probably one of the most overhyped books in the history of literature.”

Dishonourable mentions: Cold Mountain, The Mill on the Floss, The Magus, Madame Bovary The House Of Seven Gables ("Dry as dust!") and Da Vinci Code, or anything else by Dan Brown.

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