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As a member of our local library book club, I have had the pleasure of reading many excellent books that I otherwise wouldn’t have selected. I won’t write a bad review—if I don’t like a book, I simply stop reading it. When I started reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog, my first reaction was that it really wasn’t my kind of reading. I’ll just try another chapter, I thought. And then I was hooked.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery is an incredible novel. Translated from French, the book’s two main protagonists couldn’t be more different. Paloma, a privileged precocious twelve-year-old is disgusted with life and intends to end hers on her thirteenth birthday. Paloma has only one friend, but has a mind far advanced of her age. She is a deep thinker who can see through facades, including those of her own family. Although an excellent student, she hides her extraordinary intelligence.

Renee Michel, a concierge at an elegant Paris hotel, describes herself as a short, ugly, plump widow. The hotel, which consists of five posh apartments, is what we might call a condominium with Madam Michel the building manager. She is treated as she expects to be treated, as someone to take care of mundane chores, freeing up the rich and important people to go about their busy lives. What the tenants don’t know is that their concierge is a connoisseur of fine art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture.

When a new tenant arrives, a wealthy Japanese man named Kakuro Ozo, amazing things begin to happen to Madame Michel and Paloma’s worlds, each in different ways.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog is an unusual book, an ingenious work of fiction. The story line is intriguing, and shows not only the author’s masterful writing skills, but her intelligence in a wide variety of subjects.

To learn more about this French novelist and professor of philosophy, visit http://murielbarbery.com/

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Excerpt from Sailing with Impunity: Adventure in the South Pacific

Christmas away from home is always a little sad. Some of our fellow yachties chose to fly home for Christmas, but we planned to remain in American Samoa where we were securely anchored for the hurricane season.

American Samoa is strongly Christian, so as Christmas approached, the Samoans definitely got into the spirit of the season with decorations and Christmas music on the radio. Apparently, separation of church and state wasn’t a high priority. Local business people, government employees and bankers were expected to take time off from work to rehearse for scheduled Christmas programs. On several occasions we went to a particular store, or even the bank, and found it closed for a few hours during this season because the workers were attending choir practice.

For two weeks before Christmas, wonderful outdoor concerts were held every night at a park near Pogo Pogo Harbor, with various church, school, business and government choirs. We attended a program one night and were so impressed. Four different groups sang traditional Christmas carols plus other pieces we didn’t recognize. Between choral performances, scripture was read, mostly the Christmas story from the four gospels. And the drumming! We could have listened to the drumming all night. The concert ended with Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” from the “Messiah.” The music resonated with me for hours afterward as we swung at anchor aboard Impunity.

Although we both felt pangs of homesickness during the Christmas season, we were glad to experience Samoa at Christmas. This experience enriched our journey and gave new meaning to community spirit.

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Photo by Michael Hanson

The late football coach Vince Lombardi said, “The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.” A highly inspirational example of this is right here in Seattle, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Launched in 2000 by the Gates family, the foundation is co-chaired by Bill and Melinda Gates and Bill’s father, Bill Gates, Sr. As of November, 2014 the Gates endowment in U.S. dollars was $42.3 billion.

The Foundation is said to be the largest private foundation in the world and is driven by the interests and passions of the Gates family. Throughout the facility are thought-provoking quotes such as this from Melinda Gates: “If you can really believe that all 7 billion people on the planet are equal to you in spirit, then you will take action to make the world more equal for everyone.”

When you step into the large facility on Fifth Avenue North, you are greeted by a staff member. Visitors are free to wander at will, but we opted to be accompanied by a staff member for more detailed explanations of this complex philanthropic organization.

Each of the large rooms has unique displays that graphically describe the foundation’s goals and accomplishments. Beyond the reception area, the “Voices” room allows visitors to hear voices from around the world and to see portraits of the foundation family—employees, grantees, partners, beneficiaries, and co-chairs.

Moving on to the “Family & Foundation” section, we learned why and how the Gates family started the organization. Examples display methods used to work around the world.

In the “Partnerships” section, displays show how their partners are making progress on tough problems globally and locally. A note about the Gates Foundation’s “partners”: The Foundation doesn’t itself give money to causes, but rather donates funds to various partner organizations through grants, thus allowing far greater dimension to its recipients. On that same note, since the Foundation doesn’t solicit donations, visitors are encouraged to donate to causes that interest them.

The “Theater” features continuing short films about the large variety of projects, ranging from clips of Bill and Melinda to African scenes to agriculture projects in India to school children in the United States. Visitors come and go as they please, viewing as many clips as they desire.

Visitors are invited to solve real-world problems in the”Innovation & Inspiration” room. Computers and other tools are provided to give food for thought and promote ideas.

Connecting these various rooms is a long hallway with a child’s footprints imprinted on the floor. Those footprints demonstrate the distance people, most often women and children, have to carry water from the water’s source to their home, which could be a distance of three miles. Pails are loaded with the approximate weight of water. Visuals such as this drive home the desperate need many countries have for basics that we so often take for granted, such as clean water, sanitation, vaccines, and education.

The Gates Foundation works with partner organizations worldwide to tackle four program areas:

— Global Development Division works to help alleviate the poor from hunger and poverty. The partner organizations help identify and support innovative approaches to reach people’s basic needs for food, healthcare and education.

— Global Health Division helps to advance science and technology by delivering tools for basic health programs, such as vaccines, drugs and diagnostics, plus discover new solutions for on-going health needs such as clean water and sanitation.

— U.S. Program Division’s primary focus is that all students graduate from high school prepared for college. They also address issues of social inequity and poverty in Washington State, where the foundation makes its permanent home.

— Global Policy & Advocacy Division is dedicated to advancing the goals the foundation works to achieve through policy analysis, accountability, and strengthening government relations. Besides the Seattle headquarters, the foundation has a European and Middle East office in London, and offices in China, India, Ethiopia, Nigeria. and South Africa.

Every person deserves the chance to live a healthy, productive life. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is actively doing something about that. If you’re in the Seattle area, take time to visit this impressive visitor center. There is no admission fee. The center is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.. For more information visit their website: www.gatesfoundation.org or call (206) 709-3100,

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Gerry Hall Photo

Ever since it was erected, I have had my eye on that magnificent Ferris wheel on Seattle’s waterfront. On a recent sunny Sunday, our family made a day of going out on the town by visiting the heart of Seattle.

The Seattle Great Wheel is a wonderful destination, and on a clear day the view is spectacular. The wheel extends 40 feet beyond the end of Pier 57 over Elliott Bay. Our party of six filled one of the 42 gondolas and our 20-minute ride was three full revolutions of the wheel.

The day was particularly beautiful with Puget Sound sparkling, and we could see as far away as Mount Rainier and the Olympic Mountains. Our closer view of Seattle’s waterfront and the city’s skyscrapers was fun, too. We enjoyed identifying the many buildings, including the Smith Tower, a building that has stood for 100 years. Now dwarfed by other buildings, it was once the tallest building on the West Coast.

This latest Seattle icon was built in less than a year and opened to the public in 2012. The wheel, manufactured in Europe and the United States, was assembled right at the end of Pier 57. Standing 175 feet tall, Seattle Great Wheel weighs 280,300 pounds. Its foundation consists of 550 tons of concrete.

The Seattle Great Wheel’s enclosed gondolas are climate-controlled, allowing twelve-month operation, no matter the weather. From inside, passengers have a 360-degree view.

At night, the wheel is lit up with white gondola lights. On special occasions, such as the evenings of University of Washington or Seattle Seahawks home football games, or on holiday evenings, the wheel features an LED light show.

The Seattle Great Wheel is the third in North America with this design, following Niagara SkyWheel in Canada, also 175 feet, and the 187 foot Myrtle Beach SkyWheel in South Carolina. The Seattle Great Wheel is the only one of the three to be built over water.

The United States’ first Ferris wheel appeared in Chicago at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 and was a creation of George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. It was the largest attraction at the World Fair and was hugely popular. Today, the Ferris wheel is a major attraction at county fairs, large and small. It’s a grand way to look around the fair itself and nearby countryside.

The Seattle Great Wheel. It operates daily. Consult their website for hours, prices and announcements: www.seattlegreatwheel.com

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Note: On a small sailboat at sea, you take the bad with the good. Over a 14-month period, Bruce and I sailed 13,000 miles on our boat Impunity, journeying from Seattle through the South Pacific and home again. There were many serene moments with fair winds and calm seas, and also tense moments with violent midnight squalls and even a cyclone in Samoa. This is an excerpt from my memoir of our many adventures, Sailing with Impunity:Adventure in the South Pacific, 

In the Kingdom of Tonga, we anchored Impunity near one of many tiny islands. This particular island had a long protected point with only two houses on it. From our boat we could see a woman walking to a well and home again. I rowed ashore in our dinghy to meet this older woman whose name was Marie. Rather than conversing, our exchange was really more of a mime since she knew very little English and I knew no Tongan. Much of the week Marie, a widow, lived a simple, quiet life alone on the island, but on weekends others came to gather coconuts and to dig clams. I gave Marie gifts of a packet of sewing needles and a card of pretty buttons, and from her broad smile I could tell she was pleased. These items were not readily available in Tonga.

Marie signaled for me to wait and she stepped into her square hut made of palm fronds. She emerged with a string of reddish-black beads and offered it to me as a gift. Showing me the tree from which the berries came, from the ground she picked up a fallen one and a rock. Rubbing the berry against the rock, she showed me how she polished the dried berry to make the beads. The necklace was threaded on a strong, thin vine.

The old woman asked if I liked oranges and we walked to a small orange grove. Oranges indigenous to that area are green when they are ripe, have tough skins and many seeds. Reaching for a knife from a holder at her waist, she whittled away the skin and handed me the orange to eat while she fixed one for herself. She asked me to call on her niece, a public health nurse, who lived in Neiafu. I promised her I would.

I stood to leave and Marie walked me back to my dinghy. I had in the boat an empty green, four-liter wine bottle. In this strongly Christian community, I wasn’t sure that an empty wine bottle would be an appropriate gift, but I hated to throw it away and had left it in the dinghy. When I asked her if she would like to have it, her eyes lit up. “Oh, yes. Wonderful!” For the next several days, from the boat we saw Marie walk back and forth to the well with her green bottle.

The next morning I rowed the dinghy to Neiafu and found the public health nurse’s home. Marie’s niece answered the door, expecting me. I was surprised when I saw two shiny needles pinned to her collar. Ruth spoke English and told me her aunt had shared my gift with her. She also mentioned how pleased she was that I had called on her aunt and thanked me for my kindness in taking the time. I knew Ruth had children and I’d brought gifts of an inflatable world globe and a few packages of dried fruit. The children squealed with delight when they saw the globe. The nurse, too, was excited. Her husband was a teacher and he’d be able to show it to his students.

The next evening, we heard a loud knocking on our hull. The nurse’s husband, Nuku, stopped by in his skiff to invite Bruce to go fishing with him the next day. We invited him aboard. Nuku had never been aboard a live-aboard sailboat and was curious about everything—how we cooked, navigated, the engine, the sails. He was a handsome man, tall and strong with sparkling eyes and good humor. Nuku taught school on a neighboring island and fished on his way home from work. The next day he swung by to pick up Bruce and they trolled in Nuku’s skiff for about an hour and caught four fish, two barracuda and two tuna. The teacher tried to give all four to Bruce, but Bruce declined saying we had no refrigeration, but that we would enjoy one of the tuna.

As it turned out, my little trip to see Marie developed into three friendships and enriched our stay in Tonga. I was so glad I’d made the effort.

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Colin Woodard’s American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America is a scholarly study of the eleven “nations” that make America what it is today.

We often think of the forming of America as immigration developing from east to west, expanding from the English beachheads of Massachusetts and Virginia to the shores of the Pacific. In truth, the European culture first arrived from the south, borne by the soldiers and missionaries of Spain. From American Nations, the reader discovers that many of the things learned in history classes were not quite accurate; in some cases, far from reality.

In the development America, virtually no consideration was made toward the people who already resided throughout the land, the Native Americans. The indigenous cultures before immigration often had a higher standard of living than their European counterparts. They tended to live in a healthier environment, some had public water supplies fed by stone aqueducts. The Native people had organized continent-spanning trade networks. Epidemics brought by foreigners, warfare, and their being forced to live in unsuitable areas diminished Native American populations and influence to only a small fraction of what they once were.

The states as we know them today do not define America. The eleven nations, or regional cultures, more clearly define the United States of America: Yankeedom, New Netherland, The Midlands, Tidewater, Greater Appalachia, The Deep South, New France, El Norte, Left Coast, Far West, First Nations. Some of these nations now spread into Canada and Mexico. The book contains a map which clearly defines the regions, as does the book’s cover.

Each of the founding nations are steeped in their own cultures and cherished principles, often contradicting one another.

American Nations delves into the different philosophies of our country’s regions and what it is about the dissimilarity that causes the challenges we face today in uniting our country.

I found American Nations fascinating. Woodard presents compelling explanations of the regional differences that make up America’s cultural and political landscape. It becomes clear why twenty-first century northern Democrats and Republicans have far more in common with one another than with their counterparts of the south. Values that one region holds dear aren’t necessarily shared in other parts of the country.

To learn more about Colin Woodard, award winning author and journalist, visit colinwoodard.com

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