LIVE TALKS NEW YORK & TRANSOM BOOKSHOP
PRESENT
Michael Lewis
Live at the Tarrytown Music Hall
Seats in the Orchestra include a signed copy of Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State.
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.
New York Times best-selling author Michael Lewis has published many books on subjects ranging from politics to Wall Street to sports. His books include: Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Big Short, The Blind Side, The Undoing Project, The Fifth Risk, The Premonition, Going Infinite, and Flash Boys. He edited Who Is Government?, an anthology by an all-star team of writers exploring the consequential work of government workers. Lewis is the creator and host of Apple’s #1-rated podcast Against the Rules, a searing look at what’s happened to fairness in American life through the lens of people who depend on public trust. He grew up in New Orleans and lives in Berkeley, California, with his family.
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?
Live Talks NY is produced by Los Angeles based Live Talks Productions which has curated the Live Talks Los Angeles series for the last 16 years featuring over 600 conversations with writers, actors, musicians, humorists, artists, chefs, scientists and thought leaders in business.