#36 in Dystopian
What We Can Know
- 449
- Pages
- about 8 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 1 week on the list, peaked at #10
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About the book
What We Can Know is the 18th novel by author Ian McEwan, published on 18 September 2025 by Jonathan Cape. The novel is set almost a century in the future, in 2119, in a UK partially submerged by rising seas, and is centred on Tom Metcalfe, an academic at the fictional University of the South Downs, who is investigating a lost poem, read aloud at a party in 2014.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.0 across 81 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 35% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Dystopian average of 7.7. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 8.0 | 81 | 100% |
Reader voices
The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).
““Memory is a sponge. It soaks up material from other times, other places and leaks it all over the moment in question.” “To rescue fragments of the past would be to claim a bigger existence.” I loved this novel. I really enjoyed the structure where…”
Frequently asked
How long is What We Can Know?
It has 449 pages — longer than 75% of the ranked books in Dystopian.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Dystopian — with scores between 7.6 and 7.9, closest to this book.
