A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF PRESIDENT OBAMA’S 2025 SUMMER READS AS SEEN ON CBS MORNINGS , CNN ANDERSON COOPER , ABC NEWS LIVE , MSNBC MORNING JOE, AND MANY MORE "This eye-opening, multifaceted ode to public service. . . feels both urgent and moving." —The Guardian "Terrific." — New York Times An all-star team of writers and storytellers go in search of the essential public servant Who works for the government and why does their work matter? Michael Lewis invited his favorite writers, including Casey Cep, Dave Eggers, John Lanchester, Geraldine Brooks, Sarah Vowell, and W. Kamau Bell, to join him in writing about someone doing an interesting job for the government. The stories they found are unexpected, riveting, and inspiring, including a former coal miner devoted to making mine roofs less likely to collapse, saving thousands of lives; an IRS agent straight out of a crime thriller; and the manager who made the National Cemetery Administration the best-run organization, public or private, in the entire country. Each essay shines a spotlight on the essential behind-the-scenes work of exemplary federal employees. Whether they’re digitizing archives, chasing down cybercriminals, or discovering new planets, these public servants are committed to their work and universally reluctant to take credit. Expanding on the celebrated Washington Post series, these vivid profiles show how the essential business of government makes our lives possible.

An inside look at the early days of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, as told by the public servants it targeted and one of America’s best storytellers. Blockers. It wasn’t a compliment. In the new Washington, it was the worst thing you could be―especially if you worked in the federal government and wanted to keep your job. A Blocker was a holdover, an impediment, someone who didn't get the message―and, most of all, someone who didn't belong. Michael Lewis found six of them. Blockers is the story of people who believed they had a calling, who were convinced they were doing something the country couldn’t do without, and then discovered they were no longer wanted. One kept Americans’ most sensitive tax data out of the wrong hands and another made sure that politicians and civil servants played by the rules. One figured out how to stop wildfires from destroying suburban neighborhoods, another helped uncover the mysteries of cystic fibrosis. There was also a security guard. It should come as no surprise that the writer who made subprime mortgages gripping ( The Big Short ) and who turned baseball statistics into poetry ( Moneyball ) could transform the first two years of the second Trump administration into a thriller about federal employees. But he does. And he does something else. He puts before us a clear question: If these public servants can’t survive in government today, then what does that say about us?