The Colbert Report has started a book club. It may be a one-off thing: the show seems to be promoting a particular movie. The single book on the book club reading list is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Baz Luhrmann has made a film version of the book, and Colbert is having Baz Luhrmann on in a May episode. Also in attendance will be Pulitzer-Prize winner Jennifer Egan, who will lead the discussion. The Great Gatsby is sometimes treated as the Great American Novel (a phrase coined by not-famous-anymore writer J.W. DeForest). Colbert seems to mobilizing his Colbert Nation into a mass reading of this novel. I watch The Colbert Report religiously, so I will see it anyway, but I am curious to see if Egan comments on whether or not Gatsby has influenced her writing. Her book A Visit from the Goon Squad addresses the idea of the American Dream, a major theme in Fitzgerald's book.