SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO BOOK AWARDS FICTION AWARD 2025McEwans most richly layered work Sunday TimesA gripping pageturner ObserverA daring, beautiful novel, full of wisdom and heart Elif ShafakA quest, a literary thriller and a love story, What We Can Know spans the past, present and future to ask profound questions about who we are and where we are going.2014 A great poem is read aloud and never heard again. For generations, people speculate about its message, but no copy has yet been found.2119 The lowlands of the UK have been submerged by rising seas. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost.Tom Metcalfe, a scholar at the University of the South Downs, part of Britains remaining archipelagos, pores over the archives of the early twentyfirst century, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith.When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the great lost poem, revelations of entangled love and a brutal crime emerge, destroying his assumptions about a story he thought he knew intimately.What We Can Know is a masterpiece that reclaims the present from our sense of looming catastrophe, and imagines a future world where all is not quite lost.

Binding: Hardback;400 pages; Publisher: TBS-Penguin Random House Wholesale; Classification: FA; Weight: 652 g; Dimensions: 241 x 164 x 31

Something not quite right? You have 28 days from the day you receive it, to send something back.

Please note, we cannot offer refunds on fashion face masks, cosmetics, pierced jewellery, adult toys, and swimwear or lingerie if the hygiene seal is not in place or has been broken.

Items of footwear and/or clothing must be unworn and unwashed with the original labels attached. Also, footwear must be tried on indoors. Items of homeware including bedlinen, mattresses, and toppers, and pillows must be unused and in their original unopened packaging. This does not affect your statutory rights.

Click here to view our full Returns Policy.