Hello and welcome to another book club episode of the book review podcast.

I'm MJ Franklin. I'm an editor here at the New York Times Book Review, and this week,

we're chatting about Ian McEwen's new novel, What We Can Know.

Ian McEwen, you may know as the literary master perhaps best known for his book, Atonement.

What we can know is his latest to publish in September of this year, and our critic Dwight Garner said,

quote, it's the best thing Ian McEwen has written in ages.

So I wanted to dive in and talk about it with fellow readers, and that's what we're here to

do today and joining me in that adventure are two of my brilliant colleagues. First up, we have Sarah Lyle,

a writer at large here at the New York Times, and our thrillers columnist, Sarah, welcome back.

Thank you. And Sarah, you interviewed Ian McEwen for the book review, correct? I did a profile of him

around this new book a couple months ago. So I'm excited to tap into your insider knowledge. I want the tea. I want to know the story behind the story. So we dive into that. And also with us is Leah Greenblatt. Leah is a fellow editor here at the book review. You were here last month for Book Club. Leah, welcome back. I have minimal tea, but many opinions. Yes, because you are an avid McEwen reader, and you've read most, if not all of his books.

I'd say most, yeah.

Not a full completist, but close.

So we have experts in the house, and I am just excited to dive into this book.

Before we begin, I have my typical admin notes I want to get up top. First, there will be spoilers in this episode. However, I know the journey of this novel is part of the fun. So to keep this conversation accessible to all, whether you've read the book or you have not read the book, we are going to keep the first half of this conversation,

spoiler light. We'll talk about the setup, we'll talk about our general thoughts, but we are

going to stay away from the big twists or any big revelations. We will save those for the second

half of the episode, which will be spoiler filled. So 2.0 on Adventure, first half, spoiler

light, second half, spoiler filled.

We're going to dive in and make sure that this conversation is fun, accessible to all.

That was note number one. Note number two, at the end of the episode, we will reveal our January

book club pick. So stay with us if you want to hear what we're reading next. And without further

...