Join our newsletter for 10% off at the Penguin Shop

What We Can Know

byIan McEwan, David Rintoul (Read by), Rachel Bavidge (Read by)

Format:

HardbackPaperbackEbookAudio Download

Buy the book from:

Apple BooksOpens in a new tabAudibleOpens in a new tabGoogle PlayOpens in a new tabHiveOpens in a new tabKoboOpens in a new tabLibro.fmOpens in a new tabSpotifyOpens in a new tabxigxagOpens in a new tab

In a world submerged by rising seas, can the secrets of the past be discovered? The breathtaking Sunday Times bestseller.

2014: A great poem is read aloud and never heard again. For generations, people speculate about its message.

2119: With the UK’s lowlands submerged by rising seas, those who survive are haunted by all that has been lost.

Tom Metcalfe, a university scholar, pores over the archives of the early twenty-first century. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the lost poem, he reveals a story of entangled love and a brutal crime that challenges everything he thought he knew about the past.

‘Full of wisdom and heart. I loved it’ Elif Shafak
‘A gripping page-turner’ Observer
‘It gave me so much pleasure’ New York Times
‘A dazzling novel’ Independent
‘Haunting, playful and ultimately hopeful… A wonderful book’ Kaliane Bradley
‘A poignant love letter to the vanishing past’ Guardian

*A BOOK OF THE YEAR for the Sunday Times, Guardian, New York Times, New Statesman, Spectator, New Yorker, i Paper and Barack Obama*

© Ian McEwan 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

What We Can Know may well have created a new genre: the postapocalyptic campus novel. Imagine AS Byatt’s Possession crossed with Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Dark academia meets the big ideas novel, all conveyed in McEwan’s trim, beautifully ordered sentences

Johanna Thomas-Corr, Sunday Times

About Ian McEwan

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; Machines Like Me; and Lessons. Atonement, Enduring Love, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach have all been adapted for the big screen.
Learn more
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • ISBN: 9781529961584
  • Length: 699 minutes
  • Price: £16.00
All editions

You might like...

Book cover of The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
The Comfort of StrangersIan McEwan
Book cover of First Love, Last Rites by Ian McEwan
First Love, Last RitesIan McEwan
Book cover of Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
Black DogsIan McEwan
Book cover of The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan
The DaydreamerIan McEwan
View more