For the second time in five years, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize has gone to a novel unpublished in the UK. Following Austin Clarke with The Polished Hoe in 2004, the Canadian author Lawrence Hill took the £10,000 main award for The Book of Negroes - a title that his nervous US publisher changed to Someone Knows My Name. Perhaps the award will trigger a deal; it did for Clarke, who was signed up by Tindal Street.

***

A memoir by Fatima Bhutto, the 25-year-old niece of the late Benazir Bhutto, aroused publishers' interest at the recent London Book Fair. Now it has been bought, by Cape. “Fatima's story challenges the conventional wisdom about Pakistan, about the politics of family, and about the relationship between women and power,” Cape says. The book will appear in 2010.

***

The name of Canongate may be about to get the same luck as when the publishing firm spotted Yann Martel's Booker Prize winner Life of Pi. Canongate is also a racehorse, owned by Jennie Bland (mother of Canongate MD Jamie Byng), which made a sensational winning debut, at Deauville. You can see the video of the race at YouTube. Canongate is unmentioned in the commentary until the field enters the home straight, when he comes storming down the outside to win.

***

The bestselling author in Uzbekistan is Islom Karimov. There are 30 million copies of his books in print - more than one for every member of the population. At the televised launch of his latest work, guests hailed it as “the best book on philosophy and morality since the times of Socrates”. Islom Karimov is the President of Uzbekistan.

***

The future that J.G. Ballard warned us about in Crash has come about on the internet, where Random House is promoting Chuck Palahniuk's novel Rant with a car-driving game. The object? “Disregard the rules of the road and cause the most monumental car crash possible!”

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• The 100 Best Books of the Decade
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• The conversation: James Ellroy