Terry Gross

Bassist and singer Josh Haden is Charlie's son. After years of playing punk, he founded the trio "Spain" and their 1995 debut album "Blue Moods of Spain" was critically acclaimed. Their new album is "She Haunts My Dreams" (Restless Records). The music on their new CD has been described as "languid," "melancholy" and "cabaret-ready country music."

Eric Idle was one of the six original members of Monty Python's Flying Circus which, by the way, celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. He wrote many of the songs from the show like, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." Since then, Idle has written a number of books. His latest is a comic science-fiction thriller, "The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel." (Pantheon books)

Screenwriter and director Audrey Wells. She is making her directorial debut with the new film "Guinevere" starring Stephen Rea and Sarah Polley. The film is about a mentor relationship between an older man and a young woman, and the needs and insecurities that compel them. Wells also wrote the screenplay for "The Truth about Cats and Dogs."

Former mail order magnate J. Peterman. His text-heavy apparel catalogs spun stories of adventure, and earned him a place as a fictional character on the hit T-V series "Seinfeld." But his business failed, and now he's written an article in the current issue of "The Harvard Business Review" to tell what happened.

Writer Edmund Morris. His biography of former president Ronald Reagan, "Dutch," (Random House) has garnered a lot of controversy. Morris uses a fictional narrator to tell much of the story, taking unprecedented artistic liberties. This is the first biography authorized by a sitting president, and it took Morris fourteen years to finally complete the work. Morris, a South African by birth, is the author of "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt," which won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award. He is currently at work on a second volume of the Roosevelt biography.

Terry Gross calls Jimmy Carter to discuss his 75th birthday.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter discusses his work helping monitor elections in East Timor at the time of the referendum for independence.

Jose Ramos-Horta ("Joe-zay Ra-MOSH Horta") is an exiled East Timorese resistance leader. In 1996 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Bishop Belo from East Timor. Since 1975, when Indonesia invaded and annexed the newly independent East Timor, Ramos-Horta has denounced Indonesia's actions and defended the rights of East Timorese, as an ambassador to the U.N. and a representative for independence groups.

Trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas doesn't like to categorize music. He's currently fronting seven ensembles, of varying compositional, improvisational and instrumental styles, including the Dave Douglas String Group, the Tiny Bell Trio, and the Sextet. He's been a sideman with Don Byron, Myra Melford and Uri Caine. Douglas has many compositions and recordings to his credit. His latest recordings are "Songs for Wandering Souls" (Winter & Winter) by the Tiny Bell Trio, and "Convergence" (Soul Note) by the Dave Douglas String Group.

Historian Christopher Andrew is the author of the new book "The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB" (Basic books). The book is based on the documents smuggled out of the KGB archives by Vasili Mitrokhin, who worked for 30 years in the foreign intelligence archives of the KGB. In 1972 he began making notes and transcripts of the archives which he then smuggled out daily and hid. He defected to Britain in 1992.