Hearth Surgery

For a double issue, the December 21-28 2009 issue of the New Yorker is surprisingly thin on memorable articles. I was looking forward to Helen Simpson’s “Diary of an Interesting Year,” on the strength of other stories of hers I’ve read, but I found her grim little post-apocalyptic tale neither as dark and brooding as “The Road” nor as high-concept as “Children of Men” (the original P..D. James novel, not the violent gore-fest movie). The only piece that stuck with me was Burkhard Bilger’s “Hearth Surgery, about a group of inventers and iconoclasts who are trying to solve poverty and global warming by designing high-efficiency stoves for the Third World. I’ve had a little (very unsuccessful) experience with building solar ovens with the Cub Scouts, so I took away a few pointers for future attempts at more interesting ways to grill our hot dogs.