*Claude Lévi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory*

Patrick Wilcken is the author of this excellent book, excerpt:

Lévi-Strauss began work in the autumn at the New School for Social Research, his name chopped down to Claude L. Strauss, to distinguish himself from the jeans.  “The students would find it funny,” he was told by way of explanation.  The confusion would plague him throughout his life. “Hardly a year goes by without my receiving, usually from Africa, an order for a pair of jeans,” he told Didier Eribon in the 1980s — though, with fame, Lévi-Strauss found he could almost hold his own.  When he gave his name while queuing for a restaurant in San Francisco in the 1980s, the waiter shot back, “The pants or the books?”

Definitely recommended, read the Amazon reviews at the link.