The recent death of J. D. Salinger, one of the greatest writers in American history, sparked a renewed interest in his books.

It encouraged me to reread “The Catcher in the Rye” and research his life.

Jerome David Salinger exiled himself from mainstream society more than four decades ago. And that’s exactly what made him so appealing to millions of his fans around the world.

Salinger only published four books and a handful of short stories in his life. One could read everything he published within one day.

This fact frustrates Salinger fans like myself. Surely there must be more written by him.

Well, there is. In a special archive in Princeton University’s Firestone Library, one can read Salinger’s World War II letters as well as a handful of unpublished short stories, including “The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls,” which has become famous among Salinger aficionados.

I couldn’t wait for them to be published. However, in his will, Salinger wrote wants the stories to be published 50 years after his death. In 2060, I will be 72 and probably won’t care about Salinger anymore.

What a pompous, stubborn old man, making his fans wait for so long. On top of that, he has suggested in the precious few interviews he gave that he has written at least a dozen novels but will not publish them.

Salinger explained that he loves to write but considers publishing his works an invasion of his privacy.

I will spend Memorial Day weekend with my parents in New York City. Why not? I’d thought, see how far Princeton is from the Big Apple. After all, New Jersey is a small state, right?

Turns out, Princeton is a mere 45-minute, $23 train ride from New York’s Penn Station. Then, I will take the “Dinky Train” from Princeton Township to the university.

I will give two forms of identification and be supervised by a librarian. I will have to read the lost literary jewels isolated in a low-lit, damp reading room, and I will only be permitted to read Xerox copies of the manuscripts.

Am I desperate? Do I have no life?

Perhaps. But, what I find most fascinating about Salinger is he was completely countercultural.

We live in a time when nothing is private anymore. We have become a culture of narcissistic megalomaniacs who make every aspect of our lives public on YouTube, Facebook and “reality” TV.

By contrast, Salinger, one of the most read authors in the history of the English language, avoided the media at all costs when he exiled himself to Cornish, New Hampshire.

Everyone in the tiny New England village knew Salinger. He bought the Sunday edition of the New York Times from the general store every week and attended the weekly roast beef dinners in the local Congregationalist church.

Yet, without exception, they never revealed to strangers where the famed author lived. Instead, they gave city slickers wrong directions and got them lost in the country when they asked for directions.

All these intriguing details made Salinger’s work even more prized. Next month, I will embark on a crusade to hold photocopies of the unpublished holy grail of American literature in my trembling, sweating hands for just a few minutes.