It feels like we’ve just lived through seven months in the past two weeks. What helps get me through periods of disorder and uncertainty, more than any other activity, is reading, especially if I can find a book that offers a clarifying view into a subject, a persuasive argument, or a satisfying and transportive story. Here’s hoping we can all find a book to help us make sense of things, or at least bring order to our minds.

Hitting shelves next week is the final novel from Julian Barnes. In our profile, he reflects on how his life and career have informed his insights into friendship, literature, love, and mortality. Meanwhile, in time for the Super Bowl, culture writer Chuck Klosterman sheds light on the outsized and perhaps fading influence of football in America, and novelist Shen Tao spins a tale of poetry’s deadly magic.

—David Varno