{"id":1906,"date":"2026-08-07T19:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T19:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1906"},"modified":"2026-08-07T19:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T19:45:07","slug":"the-best-way-to-learn-outside-of-the-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1906","title":{"rendered":"The Best Way to Learn Outside of the Classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"<section>\n<div>\n<p><small><em>This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors\u2019 weekly guide to the best in books. <\/em><i>Sign up for it here.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1904\">The Thrill of Letting Pop Culture Consume You<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cHow are you on <em>theory<\/em>?\u201d my editor asked me earlier this week. I knew what he was talking about\u2014not my pet hypotheses about, say, the existence of cryptids, but rather a group of 20th-century French philosophers. Yet I didn\u2019t know much else beyond that. I was familiar with Michel Foucault, partly from college coursework but largely from a popular meme that features his most famous concept, the panopticon. I know about Roland Barthes and the death of the author. I know that Derrida, Lacan, and Deleuze are names that I <em>should <\/em>know.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot good,\u201d I told him.<\/p>\n<p>First, here are four new stories from <em>The Atlantic\u2019s<\/em> Books section:<\/p>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Icarus in the faculty lounge<\/li>\n<li>Someone is mysteriously snapping up used books around the world.<\/li>\n<li>What if Freud was right?<\/li>\n<li>\u201cOut Here,\u201d a collection of poems by the Black Seed Writers Group<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>I could read their works for myself, of course. I could pick up Foucault\u2019s <em>Discipline and Punish<\/em> at any one of the college bookstores that serve four major universities in my city. But frankly\u2014and I don\u2019t think I\u2019m alone in this\u2014I\u2019d rather not. My preference as a busy adult is to begin my approach to foundational, complicated ideas with the help of a particular kind of book: the intellectual biography.<\/p>\n<p>The structuralists would hate this. Lynn Steger Strong makes exactly that point in an <em>Atlantic <\/em>essay published this week about a new group biography of these thinkers. I may be oversimplifying their ideas (as Strong writes, any \u201csmooth summary inevitably sacrifices complexity\u201d), but in general, they disregarded biography as a source of useful information about art; Barthes, especially, rejected literary criticism that drew on an author\u2019s life to unlock the meaning of their work. \u201cThere was only the text, over which the writer had little control,\u201d Strong explains. \u201cEven the self was ultimately an unstable text.\u201d This makes a biography of the cohort feel almost sacreligious. Emily Eakin\u2019s new book, <em>The Frenchmen<\/em>, focuses on these men\u2019s personal lives to illuminate their earthshaking writings. After finishing it, Strong wonders: \u201cHow could biography not be important?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I agree. Important ideas don\u2019t just come to Earth fully formed and then flow through their speakers; they\u2019re influenced by the wider context in which they develop. Earlier this year, when I was curious about the life and work of Karl Marx, the first book I reached for wasn\u2019t <em>Capital<\/em>. Instead, I read Francis Wheen\u2019s 2000 biography of the man\u2014yes, I learned, he <em>did <\/em>ask Frederich Engels for money immediately after Engels told him that his beloved partner, Mary, had died. And yes, he really did spend ages in the British Museum\u2019s reading room trying to squeeze as much information as possible into <em>Capital <\/em>(which is not to say that he didn\u2019t miss anything). The biography also reminded me that Marx did not invent socialism; he was building on an intellectual tradition that predated him by decades.<\/p>\n<p>I encourage readers to try this out for themselves. Back in 2022, Talya Zax recommended nine group biographies that explain not only the lives of their subjects but also how those individuals influenced other people and movements. Personally, I\u2019m on to a new topic: I\u2019m about five chapters into Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark\u2019s forthcoming biography of Roy Cohn, <em>American Scoundrel<\/em>, and the world of 20th-century New York City\u2014an environment that incubated hundreds of famous and influential leaders, including our current president\u2014is unfolding before me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How Theory Took Over the World<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i>By Lynn Steger Strong<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The French writers of the postwar era argued that the author\u2019s life is irrelevant. Emily Eakin\u2019s lively new book proves them wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1902\">The Case for Calling People on the Phone<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Read the full article.<\/p>\n<h4><b>What to Read<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><strong><em>The Ha\u00e7ienda: How Not to Run a Club<\/em><\/strong><strong>, by Peter Hook<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Ha\u00e7ienda in Manchester was a catalyst of the U.K. acid house scene in the late \u201980s, and a prophecy foretold: \u201cThe ha\u00e7ienda must be built,\u201d the Situationist poet Ivan Chtcheglov wrote in 1953. Heeding these cryptic words some three decades later, the audacious (and well-read) impresario Tony Wilson opened the Ha\u00e7ienda together with the circle of post-punk musicians and designers involved with his label, Factory Records. Their attempt to decipher Chtcheglov\u2019s mystical phrase lasted 15 years. Hook, the bassist for New Order, served as a kind of player-coach at the Ha\u00e7ienda, helping manage its madcap affairs while his band became the club\u2019s cash cow. In this memoir of misbegotten business administration, Hook returns to the storied nights out that changed British culture even as they threatened to bankrupt him\u2014and worse. Beset by gangs and guns, the Ha\u00e7ienda faltered in the \u201990s despite clever-sounding schemes such as replacing the club\u2019s security with the gangsters themselves. This is a scrapbook of utopian folly, yes, but also an insider\u2019s look at what was, for a time, the wildest workplace on Earth.\u00a0 \u2014 Andrew Holter<\/p>\n<p>From our list: Five books about going out that are worth staying in for<\/p>\n<h4><b>Out Next Week<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><em>\ud83d\udcda <\/em><em>Sunrise<\/em>, by T\u00e9a Obreht<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><em>\ud83d\udcda <\/em><em>Days of Miracle and Wonder: Paul Simon and the Trials and Triumphs of Graceland<\/em>, by Ashley Kahn<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><em>\ud83d\udcda <\/em><em>Under the Falls<\/em>, by Richard Russo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h4><strong>Your Weekend Read<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><strong>Do Not Paint Granite!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i>By Dorothy Robyn<\/i><\/p>\n<p>History and aesthetics aside, Trump\u2019s plan violates a : Do not paint granite. Granite is a superior building facade that has been used for other distinctive structures in Washington, D.C., such as the Library of Congress and the Old Post Office. Left unpainted, granite requires little maintenance. Once granite <em>is<\/em> painted, however (and examples are rare), it requires extensive maintenance in perpetuity. Greg Werkheiser, a co-founder of Cultural Heritage Partners, a law firm representing the DC Preservation League (which is suing over the project), has warned that the EEOB could become the : As soon as painting is finished on one end, it will be time to begin again on the other.<\/p>\n<p>Read the full article.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><small><em>When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting <\/em>The Atlantic<em>.<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><small><i>Sign up for The Wonder Reader,<\/i><i> a Saturday newsletter in which our editors recommend stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1900\">The Internet Is in Crisis<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><small><i>Explore <\/i><i>all of our newsletters.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a busy adult, I approach foundational, complicated ideas with the help of the intellectual biography.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-briefing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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