The novel is nominated in the Guardian First Book Award, which will be given out on Thursday.

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Lord of the Rings is currently packing them in and last week Philip Pullman author of a trilogy of children's books was awarded one of the world's top literary prizes the Whitbread Book of the Year, the first time that a book aimed at children has carried off this particular award, The Amber Spy Glass, part three of the trilogy.

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His first novel, which has been nominated for a National Book Award, makes local color intimately familiar.

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Her first novel I, Coriander won the Nestle Children's Book Prize Gold Award in 2005.

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Last Monday night in NYC, we had a book launch party for Leading So People Will Follow and our first annual Fully Accepted Leader award ceremony.

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In a 2001 interview with the BBC, after she had won the WHSmith Book Award for fiction, Binchy described the five rejections she received for her first novel as "a slap in the face".

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