What is an emotion? In his 'Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions' (1939), Jean-Paul Sartre picks up what William James, Martin Heidegger and others had written about this question to suggest that the emotions are not external forces acting upon consciousness but an action of consciousness as it tries to rearrange the world to suit itself.
Crufts is the biggest dog show in the world with more than 24,000 toy, terrier, pastoral, hound, gundog, utility and working breeds entered for competition this year. But what lies behind the decision to favour one Pekingese over another?
Jon McNaught has created more than forty covers for the LRB as well as artwork for books, diaries, posters and campaigns. In this film he takes us through the process of making a cover, from inspiration, sketches and photographs to creating the final artwork.
James Meek looks at some of the political debate stirred in Greenland by the release of a Danish documentary earlier this year and considers why Donald Trump is so obsessed with owning the island.
Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell look at Jane Austen's use of the words 'interest' and 'interesting' and the significance of women reading in her novels in this extract from their podcast series 'On Satire'.
In this diary piece published in 1994, Lawrence Hogben, a New Zealand-born meteorologist and Royal Navy officer, describes the way this forecasting by committee worked, and why they very nearly chose the wrong day.
When Michael Dobson wrote about the printing of Shakespeare’s First Folio for the London Review of Books, he described it as a ‘series of headaches’. When we tried to replicate those 17th century methods to celebrate the anniversary of the First Folio with our own Shakespearean print, we discovered how true that was.
In her writing about food for the London Review of Books in the 1980s, Angela Carter found a potent subject for her unique combination of savage wit and political commentary. In this film, Marco Alessi revisits these pieces and, with Susannah Clapp and Edmund Gordon, explores their humour, style and intellectual background.
James Meek reports from Mykolaiv and the area of southern Ukraine that has become a crucial battleground in the war, as Russian forces seek to maintain control of the land they’ve occupied west of the Dnieper, and the Ukrainians try to push them back across the river.
How many Stanisław Lems were there? Five (at least), according to Jonathan Lethem. This short film, adapted from Lethem’s recent piece for the LRB, takes a voyage into the Lem cosmos.
Anthony Wilks's film traces the connections between the events of Eric Hobsbawm’s life and the history he told, from his teenage years in Germany and his communist membership, to the jazz clubs of 1950s Soho and the makings of New Labour, taking in Italian bandits, Peruvian peasant movements and the development of nationalism in the modern world along the way.
Alan Bennett examines his wardrobe, in his 2019 Diary.
Watch how the LRB used to be put together, with scalpel and glue.
Ben Campbell traces the history of the London Review of Books through its typography and cover art.