“What We Can Know” by Ian McEwan – let’s read and discuss!

Welcome back, readers! For this round we’ve chosen Ian McEwan’s novel “What We Can Know”. It comes fresh off the presses, having been released this September!

Here’s a brief summary:

> 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, an academic at the University of the South Downs, part of Britain’s remaining island archipelagos, 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 lost poem, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a 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 that reclaims the present from our sense of looming catastrophe, and imagines a future world where all is not quite lost.

As always, you can find more information and reviews on the book’s GoodReads page.

Curious to join us? Order a copy at your local book shop or online:

• The book on Bookshop
• The book on Amazon
• Search for used copies on Abebooks (among them signed copies for < 100€)

An e-book is of course also available, along with audio versions and translations into various languages.

Our meeting is scheduled for December 16, 2025 and we usually discuss in English for 1.5-2 hours. You definitely don’t need a literature degree to participate! It’s important to us to listen to each other, to treat everyone with respect and to create a safe setting.

The discussion takes place virtually in Zoom and the meeting link will be added to this event on the day it happens. Just check back here half an hour before the meetup starts!

It doesn’t matter if you have actually finished the book or whether you’ve attended before – everyone is welcome, as long as you have read at least a few pages and bring your impression.