In Tuesday’s episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen had his book club, talked about J.D Salinger and interviewed filmmakers and writers.

At the beginning of the episode, Stephen had his interview area set up like a fancy living room. He was planning his Colbert Book Club, a clear knock-off of Oprah’s book club. Before he began, he talked about Syria.

Stephen poured himself a really big glass of chardonnay and said that he was a powerful media mogul with his show and multiple books. He compared himself to Oprah and dug right in.

Stephen joked that J.D. Salinger (the subject of the book club) couldn’t be there because MTV had either booked him for the VMAs or he died in 2010. He then told the life story of Salinger.

Salinger wasn’t the best student and flunked out of school his sophomore year. He didn’t read his reading assignment. Stephen showed a picture of The Catcher and the Rye and said “probably because he hadn’t written it yet.”

Stephen said that The Catcher and the Rye was one of America’s most well known novels that “he didn’t get.” Stephen said that he loved Salinger’s short stories about the Glass family. He said that no one could convince him that Catcher and the Rye was Salinger’s book. However, he did bring a guest to try to convince him.

Stephen welcomed Tobias Wolff, the author of This Boy’s Life, a coming of age novel influenced by The Catcher and the Rye. Wolff believed that The Catcher and the Rye is one of the great American novels. However, he wished that The Catcher and the Rye was not taught to the kids because it made kids discover that the adult world was ‘phony’ and that is something that they need to discover on their own.

Stephen said that he didn’t read the book and that didn’t matter because he was like the main character in that he didn’t go along with what society told him to do.

The second guest of the night was Shane Salerno. Salerno is the author of a book called Salinger and the director and writer of a film with the same name. Salerno said that he decided to use Salinger as a subject because his life was so extraordinary.

One example from the extraordinary life is that Salinger lost the love of his life to Charlie Chaplin. When Salinger went to war, he read in a paper that his 18-year-old girlfriend had moved to Hollywood and married 53-year-old Chaplin. Gross.

Stephen also revealed another fun fact about Salinger. He, allegedly, had one ball.

Overall, it was a pretty interesting episode of Colbert. I’d never really looked into the life of Salinger and it made me want to reread The Catcher and the Rye.