If Terry Gross is to be believed, then I'll confirm that scheduled interview.

Confirmed at Fresh Air's web site.

He has a book coming out quite soon, too. According to Morning Edition. :->

Eloise: Jim Henley of Unqualified Offerings has had the book for two weeks.

While waiting for Fresh Air to start, I caught a nice interview with Neil Gaiman. Should be in the Talk of the Nation archives by tomorrow.

Salam Pax has one of the most unusual accents I've ever heard, but he said he lived outside of Iraq for years. The interview was pretty interesting. I only read his Weblog from time to time, but am tempted to go out and buy his Weblog in book form (to be printed shortly).

If you missed the show (as I did) you can download it from npr.org and listen to it on your computer.

Salam's accent has a heavy Austrian flavor to it, which makes sense given that he lived for seven years in Austria.

It seemed to me that he was far more tactful about the Americans in the interview than he has been in his blog. I wonder why. I have lots of theories, but no evidence for any of them.

Perhaps because when he was in Bagdad he didn't have to fear being deported. Now that there are lots of people (at NPR, if nowhere else) who know exactly who he is, he may have justification for feeling that if he's too critical he may be kicked out of the country, or even locked away in the sunny oubliette of Gitmo as an "enemy combatant."

It stinks, but it's not impossible.

The book's out here in a Canadian edition, we bought it yesterday.