Best Australian books out in September: a Big Little Lies sequel, Keating’s vision and ‘superagers’

Each month Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on

Under Story by Chloe Benjamin review – this time-reversal melodrama is quantum hokum

A grieving couple who have lost their son find a way to a mirror universe where time runs backwards – but the narrative machinery is shonky and distracting

Gen Z ‘Chinamaxxers’ fantasise about life in China. This journalist and this artist can never go back there

A graphic novel by Melissa Chan and Badiucao imagines China and the US at war in 2035. They hope to remind young people that ‘authoritarianism everywhere is bad’

Switzy by Emma Cline review – this Booker-listed account of a man’s last days is profoundly moving

Struggling with Alzheimer’s, the central character sets out on his final journey to a euthanasia clinic

Malcolm Knox: ‘Trump’s name will turn to dust, just as every other dictator’s name has’

It may sound strange: satirical novels set in Stalin’s Soviet empire, by an Australian journalist, about Trump’s America. But Knox’s darkly hilarious books have arrived when global politics so often feel like a farce

‘Who would dare take on Elizabeth Jane Howard’s fans?’ Louisa Young on reviving the Cazalet Chronicles

The author’s new trilogy continues her aunt’s beloved family saga. What would happen next to the sprawling cast of characters ... and could she pull it off?

How to make a bestseller: insiders reveal the tricks of the book trade

From cover design to shelf placement and influencer partnerships … how publishers will persuade you to buy their books this autumn

Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason review – a tale of literary obsession, with cameos from real-life authors

A heartbroken woman becomes fixated on a famous writer in this witty, touching follow-up to Sorrow and Bliss

Time Travel for Beginners by Jaclyn Moriarty review – an imaginative tale of turning back time

The YA author’s third novel for adults wears its quantum physics lightly, but it is a delight to be lost in its rich, character-driven world

The rise of ‘biogossip’: Rachel Cusk’s Natalie Portman novel is the latest in a delicious literary lineage

The much-discussed Life of M is the latest in a lineage of celebrity satire that spans from Virginia Woolf to The Devil Wears Prada

Passage by Colin Thubron review – mortality and memory in a gem of a novel

A terminally ill woman makes a final trip to Egypt in an exquisitely wrought portrait of end-of-life reckoning

Triage by Claudia Rankine review – how should we respond to the world’s atrocities?

The American poet and essayist weaves memoir, fiction, criticism and lyrical lament into a tale of friendship in an age of existential crisis

Lesley Grant-Adamson obituary

Other lives: Prolific crime writer whose first novels drew on her background in journalism

The Disappearers by Marlon James review – a scorching exposé of homophobia in Jamaica

This Booker-listed epic set in Aids-era Kingston is a triumph – bitter, bawdy and ravishingly queer

‘I was scared I was going mad’: Meg Mason speaks to fellow authors about the parasocial relationships that begin on the page

As a lonely teenager, the novels of Nancy Mitford offered the Sorrow and Bliss author a lifeline, and an imaginary friend. She explores why reading can create a particularly intense bond with a favourite writer