What We Can Know: Shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards Fiction Award 2025

*A WATERSTONES PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR 2026* The breathtaking new novel from Ian McEwan ‘A thumping literary mystery’ Independent‘A gripping page-turner’ Observer‘A beautiful novel, full of wisdom and heart. I loved it’ Elif Shafak 2014: A poem is read aloud once then vanishes without a trace. 2119: A century later, the seas have risen and the world is under water. Those who remain are haunted by what’s been lost – and what might still be found. When university scholar Tom Metcalfe stumbles across a clue that may lead to the great lost poem, he reveals a story of entangled love and a brutal crime that challenges everything he thought he knew about the past… READERS LOVE WHAT WE CAN KNOW:‘Fantastic…a book I will treasure forever’‘Brilliant, gripping, fascinating’‘Makes you question everything you think you know’‘A beautiful exploration of memory and love’‘What a book. Utterly absorbing’ ‘Rewarding and thought-provoking’ Financial Times ‘A master storyteller’ The Times ‘It gave me so much pleasure’ New York Times ‘Haunting, playful and ultimately hopeful… A wonderful book’ Kaliane Bradley *A BOOK OF THE YEAR for the Sunday Times, Guardian, New York Times, New Statesman, Spectator, New Yorker, i Paper and Barack Obama*