Sex and gender is its focus - future catastrophe's effect upon it is really just a political and philosophical vehicle for an examination of womanhood. I really liked the way it made you think about the problems of resistance, rather than glossing over them. Terry was the most helpful host I’ve ever had staying somewhere and answered all of our questions promptly and positively. Anyway, the book sounds very interesting – I don’t read futuristic books very much, dystopian or otherwise, but might give this one a try.

The fact that this is a community of women changes some of the power dynamics, but it doesn’t remove them. We meet many of the women living in the commune – if that’s the right term – but few are fully fleshed out, and many are only names on the page. It’s a novel that encourages people to stand up for what they believe in, and for many reasons felt quite timely.Is a perfect choice - that was the title of a magazine targeted at teenaged British girls featuring enthusiastic coverage of the latest six day wonder pop-star sensation and that kind of thing (view spoiler) [ unfortunately it is a very specific reference, I wonder if this and the Cumbrian setting account for so many of the low rating on Goodreads, this is a book that will make most sense to you if you have lived a long time in Britain and are of a certain age (hide spoiler)].

So when I tell you that Sarah Hall’s 2007 novel The Carhullan Army is a near-future dystopia, you probably think, as I did, that you know what this is.A detached stone discovered during renovation work within the farmhouse (now re-sited) is crudely inscribed with the initials JL and the date 1676 set within an inscribed circle, and other rough marks are set within a rectangle below. Lower Carhullan accepts these cards and reserves the right to temporarily hold an amount prior to arrival. What she eventually finds is no Shangri-La, but a remote farmstead run and fiercely guarded by 60 women under the tight control of a tough cookie named Jackie. PLAN: a small farmstead comprising a roughly rectangular house of two phases forming the south-eastern side of a narrow farmyard, and an adjacent, formerly detached, L-shaped barn range forming the north-west and south-west sides of the farmyard, which is open to the north-east. By default, reviews are sorted based on the date of the review and on additional criteria to display the most relevant reviews, including but not limited to: your language, reviews with text, and non-anonymous reviews.

The oak dog-leg staircase has turned balusters and balustrade, and plain flat-topped newel posts with shallow pyramidal caps. The novel opens as the nameless narrator finds the strength to rouse herself, striking out on foot for the Cumbrian hills, where a group of women is rumoured to be living outside the Authority’s control. I think this is miles better than books like Station Eleven, which was a book that pretty much turned me off to dystopian/post-apocalyptic books.

Her detailed descriptions of the daily routines of subsistence farming in the beautiful but unforgiving landscape are wonderful.

In this 2007 novel, Sarah Hall explores questions that I imagine are on a lot of people’s minds today. The adjacent barn is at least C18 in date and has several earlier architectural pieces incorporated within its walls, including two mullioned windows and a pair of rustic door surrounds. Carhullen represents to the narrator a Utopia and we might be reminded of Herland - I think this is explicitly nodded to on the farm, the narrator tells Jackie that she doesn't eat red meat - a life style choice that is instantly dismissed by Jackie. I wasn’t aware of this book before now but having recently finished The Power, I’m intrigued by another tale of an all-women community.

Inside the building are some original moulded ceiling-beams, a fireplace with a corbelled head and a panelled partition and doors. The Electric Michelangelo, but The Carhullan Army is as gripping - and shocking - a piece of writing as any you will read this year. Faber Members get access to live and online author events and receive regular e-newsletters with book previews, promotional offers, articles and quizzes. Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.