Music memoirs, cooking classes and squatting at Kanye’s: the best Australian books out in November

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

Season of the Swamp by Yuri Herrera review – a Mexican hero in exile

This meticulous reconstruction of Benito Juárez’s 18 months in New Orleans imagines how the inequalities he encountered shaped the future for Mexico’s first indigenous president

In brief: Hum; The Life of Birds; In Writing – review

A disturbing novel about the future of AI; David Attenborough’s readable survey of birdlife; and tips for aspiring writers of all kinds

Anne Michaels: ‘Language can’t represent brutality’

The Booker-shortlisted author on her inability to compromise, her friendship with John Berger, and the last book she gave as a gift

Deborah Levy: ‘A writer’s career is choppy – I was 50 when I found success’

Her ‘living autobiographies’ and novels have earned her legions of fans, but that success was hard won. Deborah Levy talks about stamina, boldness, and finding delight in the details

Gliff by Ali Smith review – reading the signs of crisis

Two children decode a dystopia, in a chilling and wistful novel that speaks to our times

The new folk horror: nature is coming to kill you!

In The Loney and Starve Acre, the novelist has tapped into a rich seam of rural menace. As his new collection Barrowbeck is published, he considers how today’s fictions are haunted by climate anxiety

The Unfinished Harauld Hughes by Richard Ayoade review – comic novel or conceptual art project?

The author’s alter ego is on a quest to uncover the life and work of his playwright idol in this whimsical debut

The Hotel by Daisy Johnson review – chilling tales for Halloween

There are shades of The Shining and Shirley Jackson in these atmospheric short stories set around a haunted hotel in the Fens

Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer review – a thrilling coda to an otherworldly trilogy

This follow-up to the Southern Reach series again explores the mysteries of Area X

Crime and thrillers of the month – review

Agatha Christie meets Saw in rural Essex, dark secrets of the wellbeing industry uncovered and a gripping tale of revenge on the privileged

Novelist and poet Paul Bailey dies at 87

The twice Booker prize-shortlisted author was best known for his novels, which included At the Jerusalem and Gabriel’s Lament

The Hotel by Daisy Johnson review – eerie and elegant gothic tales

This striking short story collection, set in a spooky hotel in the Fens, offers a fierce interrogation of women’s roles in the folk horror world

The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz review – witty, tightly plotted follow-up

The sequel to bestselling thriller The Plot takes the wife of the first novel’s protagonist and throws her into a satisfyingly twisty, literary satire

In brief: Jeremy Catto; Haunted Tales; A Ballet of Lepers – review

An affectionate biography of an old-school Oxford don; an atmospheric collection of spooky stories; and a darkly humorous reminder of Leonard Cohen’s early literary gifts