Popular Books : "What We Can Know" by Ian McEwan

About this event

Bertha Wood Meeting Room, Thomas Branch. Join us for a discussion of "What We Can Know" by Ian McEwan. 2014: At a dinner for close friends and colleagues, a renowned poet honors his wife’s birthday by reading aloud a new poem dedicated to her, ‘A Corona for Vivien’. 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. 2119: 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’. "What We Can Know" is a compelling 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. For adults ages 18 and up. Please call the Thomas Branch at 219-926-7696 for availability. Next month’s book club date : November 2