It's always gratifying when a book you have singled out for special attention is awarded a prize. So I was delighted to hear that one of my Bookseller picks for January, M T Anderson's The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, is winner of the 2006 National Book Award  (Young People's Category) in the USA.

M T Anderson is an extraordinary writer, and Octavian Nothing is an extraordinary book. Boston, 1775. Raised by a society of rational philosophers, who call each other by a number, Octavian and his mother - a princess in exile from a faraway land - are the only people in their household assigned names. The boy is dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest classical education; but as his regal mother, Cassiopeia, entertains the scholars with her beauty and wit, young Octavian begins to question the purpose behind his guardians' fanatical studies. Only after he dares to open a forbidden door does he learn the hideous nature of their experiments - and his own chilling role in them.

Sharp, satirical,  distrubing and inimitable. The great news is that The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing will be published in the UK in January. If I were you, I would put in an advance order now and be one of the first to read it.