The Beltway Bible: A Totally Serious A-Z Guide to Our No-Good, Corrupt, Incompetent, Terrible, Depressing, and Sometimes Hilarious Government

Every American’s owner’s manual for Washington D.C., our functionally dysfunctional seat of government.

How is legislation crafted? How do you lose an election? What do “bundler,” “quorum call” and “omnibus” mean? Why do some of the White House’s most important meetings occur at a Starbucks? Why are Washington insiders obsessed with something called Jumbo Slice? What, exactly, is a “skintern?”

Eliot Nelson, one of Washington’s funniest and most admired young journalists, knows how the sausag...