{"product_id":"9781039058200","title":"What We Can Know","description":"\u003cb\u003eBLACKWELL’S BOOK OF THE YEAR \u003ci\u003e• \u003c\/i\u003eLONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION \u003ci\u003e• NEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER\u003ci\u003e • \u003c\/i\u003eOne of Barack Obama’s Favourite Books of 2025\u003ci\u003e • The Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e’s Top 10 \u003ci\u003e• The Standard\u003c\/i\u003e’s Best 2025 Titles to Buy for Book Lovers \u003ci\u003e• \u003c\/i\u003eNamed a Best Book of 2025 by \u003ci\u003eThe Globe and Mail • New York Times • The Washington Post • The New Yorker • NPR • Barnes \u0026amp; Noble • Kirkus • Audible • The Guardian • ELLE • The Conversation • Vanity Fair • The Boston Globe • The Economist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A philosophically charged tour de force by one of the best living novelists in English.” —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review) \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eWhat We Can Know\u003c\/i\u003e] gave me so much pleasure I sometimes felt like laughing. . . . It’s the best thing McEwan has written in ages. It’s a sophisticated entertainment of a high order.” —Dwight Garner, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eWhat We Can Know\u003c\/i\u003e is] brilliantly, and surprisingly, plotted. . . . [McEwan] demonstrates with shocking intensity how little we can ever really grasp about the strange evasions of the heart.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the Booker prize–winning, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eAtonement\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSaturday, \u003c\/i\u003ea genre-bending new novel full of secrets and surprises; an immersive exploration, across time and history, of what can ever be truly known.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2014: 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2119: 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat We Can Know\u003c\/i\u003e 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.","brand":"Ian McEwan","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":49979263123813,"sku":"9781039058200","price":38.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/2651\/2997\/files\/BNCImageAPI_9fd8a747-c439-419a-b387-13f2b2fdbccc.jpg?v=1759417206","url":"https:\/\/www.commonplaceingersoll.ca\/products\/9781039058200","provider":"Commonplace Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}