What We Can Know

What We Can Know - Hardcover

$30.00
Sale price  $30.00 Regular price 
Skip to product information
What We Can Know

What We Can Know - Hardcover

$30.00
Sale price  $30.00 Regular price 
Shipping calculated at checkout.

by Ian McEwan (Author)

From the Booker prize-winning, bestselling author of Atonement and Saturday, a genre-bending new novel full of secrets and surprises; an immersive exploration, across time and history, of what can ever be truly known.

2014: At a dinner for close friends and colleagues, renowned poet Francis Blundy honors his wife's birthday by reading aloud a new poem dedicated to her, 'A Corona for Vivien'. Much wine is drunk as the guests listen, and a delicious meal consumed. Little does anyone gathered around the candlelit table know that for generations to come people will speculate about the message of this poem, a copy of which has never been found, and which remains an enduring mystery.

2119: Just over one hundred years in the future, much of the western world has been submerged by rising seas following a catastrophic nuclear accident. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost. In the water-logged south of what used to be England, Thomas Metcalfe, a lonely scholar and researcher, longs for the early twenty-first century as he chases the ghost of one poem, 'A Corona for Vivian'. How wild and full of risk their lives were, thinks Thomas, as he pores over the archives of that distant era, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the elusive poem's discovery, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a brutal crime that destroy his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well.

What We Can Know is a masterpiece, a fictional tour de force, a love story about both people and the words they leave behind, a literary detective story which reclaims the present from our sense of looming catastrophe and imagines a future world where all is not quite lost.

Author Biography

IAN McEWAN is the critically acclaimed author of nineteen novels and two short story collections. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Cement Garden; Enduring Love; Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize; Atonement; Saturday; On Chesil Beach; Solar; Sweet Tooth; The Children Act; Nutshell; and Machines Like Me, which was a number-one bestseller. Atonement, Enduring Love, The Children Act, and On Chesil Beach have all been adapted for the big screen.

Number of Pages: 320
Dimensions: 1.15 x 9.45 x 6.51 IN
Publication Date: September 23, 2025

Made with care

Great value

Elegant design

Quality materials

Details

Each book is chosen to inspire, entertain, and expand your perspective. Whether you're relaxing or learning something new, it’s made to fit seamlessly into your everyday life.

Shipping & Returns

We strive to process and ship all orders in a timely manner, working diligently to ensure that your items are on their way to you as soon as possible.

We are committed to ensuring a positive shopping experience for all our customers. If for any reason you wish to return an item, we invite you to reach out to our team for assistance, and we will evaluate every return request with care and consideration.

Shop The Full Collection

$100M Leads: How to Get Strangers To Want To Buy Your Stuff - Hardcover

$100M Leads: How to Get Strangers To Want To Buy Your Stuff - Hardcover

$100M Leads: How to Get Strangers To Want To Buy Your Stuff - Paperback

$100M Leads: How to Get Strangers To Want To Buy Your Stuff - Paperback

$100M Money Models: How To Make Money - Hardcover

$100M Money Models: How To Make Money - Hardcover

$100M Money Models: How To Make Money - Hardcover

$43.72
Sale price  $43.72 Regular price 
$100M Money Models: How To Make Money - Paperback

$100M Money Models: How To Make Money - Paperback

$100M Money Models: How To Make Money - Paperback

$36.43
Sale price  $36.43 Regular price