In Autumn 2006 an unnerving phenomenon hit the United States: honeybees were mysteriously disappearing from hives across the nation, with beekeepers reporting losses of between 30 and 90 per cent of their entire colonies. The problem soon spread to parts of Europe and even Asia, earning the name Colony Collapse Disorder. To this day nobody is absolutely sure why it is happening and what the exact causes are. However, in 1923 Rudolf Steiner, a scientist, philosopher and social innovator, predicted that bees would die out within 100 years if they were to be reproduced using only artificial methods. Startlingly, and worryingly, his prediction appears to be coming true. Queen of The Sun, What Are the Bees Telling Us? is a companion book to the critically-acclaimed film of the same name. Compiled by the film’s director Taggart Siegel, it makes a profound examination of the global bee crisis through the eyes of biodynamic and organic beekeepers, scientists, farmers, philosophers and poets. Revealing the mysterious world of the beehive and the complex social community of bees, the book unveils millennia of beekeeping, highlighting our historic and sacred relationship with bees, and how this is being compromised by highly-mechanized and intensive agro-industrial practices. The bees are messengers and their disappearance is a resounding wake-up call for humanity! With full colour, stunning photography throughout, this engaging, alarming but ultimately uplifting anthology begins with an account of how Siegel’s film came to be made. It continues with a wealth of articles, interviews and poems that offer unique philosophical and spiritual insights. Besides investigating many contributory causes of Colony Collapse Disorder, the book offers remedies as well as hope for the future. Queen of the Sun features contributions from Taggart Siegel, Jon Betz, David Heath, Gunther Hauk, Horst Kornberger, Jennifer Kornberger, Jacqueline Freeman, Johannas Wirz, Kerry Grefig, Michael Thiele, Raj Patel, Vandana Shiva, Jeffery Smith and Matthew Barton. These compelling voices signal a growing movement striving to found a culture fully in balance with nature.

Life for East End families like Pat's was always a struggle. She worked for years in Tate & Lyle's sugar factory while her husband Charlie took on two jobs so their growing family could survive. Until one day Charlie came home with a brilliant idea - they should take over The Rising Sun pub in Bromley-by-Bow. In this charming memoir Pat describes her years as a pub landlady and vividly evokes the East End community she served in the 1960s, the extraordinary characters she encountered and the changes that swept through society at that time. She also reveals why she and Charlie moved to Essex, and what it felt like to become a star of The Only Way is Essex in her seventies.

"One of the best fantasies of the year." - Buzzfeed "Riveting, passionate, and full of high stakes danger." —Tamora Pierce, #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Thiede's exciting fantasy debut, This Vicious Grace, the first in The Last Finestra duology, will keep readers turning the pages until the devastating conclusion and leave them primed for more! Three weddings. Three funerals. Alessa’s gift from the gods is supposed to magnify a partner’s magic, not kill every suitor she touches. Now, with only weeks left until a hungry swarm of demons devours everything on her island home, Alessa is running out of time to find a partner and stop the invasion. When a powerful priest convinces the faithful that killing Alessa is the island’s only hope, her own soldiers try to assassinate her. Desperate to survive, Alessa hires Dante, a cynical outcast marked as a killer, to become her personal bodyguard. But as rebellion explodes outside the gates, Dante’s dark secrets may be the biggest betrayal. He holds the key to her survival and her heart, but is he the one person who can help her master her gift or destroy her once and for all? Don't miss the thrilling conclusion to The Last Finestra duology, This Cursed Light— out now wherever books are sold!

The king is dead. Prince Augustus and Princess Marie Rose ascend to the throne. Rose must submit to becoming the Queen Who Bowed, her role affirmed as she is claimed by her husband before the faery court--a role she dreads. But first, she is allowed a trip to the capital to attend the Ball de Anon, where masks allow her the privilege of privacy. There, she meets the handsome and loyal officer Count Axel Farren of the high elves, whose destiny is soon to intertwine with that of Augustus and Rose in fateful and forbidden ways. The witch who cursed Rose at birth has not given up on her desire to bring down the Palace of the Sun. Her spies are everywhere; slander and manipulation her weapons. Will love be Marie Rose's undoing? This very steamy and sensual retelling of Sleeping Beauty is inspired by the life of Marie Antoinette. If you haven't read my other fairy tales or even if you have, let me warn you about this trilogy: It will include cliffhangers, menage, *some* themes of darker romance and power exchange, along with many decadent surprises, beautiful gardens and gowns. No one shall lose their heads in this revolution, but some will lose their hearts.

Queen in 3-D is an inside view of one of the greatest rock acts of all time told in his own pictures and words by founder member, songwriter and guitarist Brian May. Complimentary 3-D OWL viewer included.

8 Lectures in Dornach, Nov 26, 1923 to Dec 22, 1923 (CW 351) In 1923 Rudolf Steiner predicted the dire state of today's honeybee. He stated that, within fifty to eighty years, we would see the consequences of mechanizing the forces that had previously operated organically in the beehive. Such practices include breeding queen bees artificially. The fact that over sixty percent of the American honeybee population has died during the past ten years, and that this trend is continuing around the world, should make us aware of the importance of the issues discussed in these lectures. Steiner began this series of lectures on bees in response to a question from an audience of workers at the Goetheanum. From physical depictions of the daily activities of bees to the most elevated esoteric insights, these lectures describe the unconscious wisdom of the beehive and its connection to our experience of health, culture, and the cosmos. Bees is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the true nature of the honeybee, as well as those who wish to heal the contemporary crisis of the beehive. Bees includes an essay by David Adams, "From Queen Bee to Social Sculpture: The Artistic Alchemy of Joseph Beuys." The art and social philosophy of Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) is among the most influential of the twentieth century. He was strongly influenced by Rudolf Steiner's lectures on bees. The elemental imagery and its relationship to human society played an important role in Beuys's sculptures, drawings, installations, and performance art. Adams' essay on Beuys adds a whole new dimension to these lectures, generally considered to be directed more specifically to biodynamic methods and beekeeping. This volume consists of 8 lectures (of 15) from Mensch und Welt. Das Wirken des Geistes in der Natur. Über das Wesen der Bienen (GA 351).

The Finnish author of Troll: A Love Story delivers a work of “scathing satire . . . that sits somewhere between Margaret Atwood and Kurt Vonnegut” (NPR). The Core of the Sun further cements Finlandia Award–winning author Johanna Sinisalo’s reputation as a master of literary speculative fiction and of her country’s unique take on it, dubbed “Finnish weird.” In an alternative historical present, The Eusistocratic Republic of Finland has bred a new human sub-species of receptive, submissive women, called eloi, for sex and procreation, while intelligent, independent women are relegated to menial labor and sterilized so that they do not carry on their “defective” line. Vanna, raised as an eloi but secretly intelligent, needs money to find her sister, who has disappeared. Vanna forms a friendship with a man named Jare, and they become involved in buying and selling a stimulant known to the Health Authority to be extremely dangerous: chili peppers. Then Jare comes across a strange religious cult in possession of the Core of the Sun, a chili so hot that it is rumored to cause hallucinations—a temptation so enticing that it just might divert the addicted Vanna from her quest . . . “A chilling tale reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale . . . A fascinating story centered on gender politics.” —The Washington Post