
In between studying at Oxford and MIT, Harris set off by bicycle down the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel. Looking beyond this planet, she decided to become a scientist and go to Mars. From what she could tell of the world from small-town Ontario, the likes of Marco Polo and Magellan had mapped the whole earth there was nothing left to be discovered. Pico IyerĪ brilliant, fierce writer, and winner of the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize, makes her debut with this enthralling travelogue and memoir of her journey by bicycle along the Silk Road-an illuminating and thought-provoking fusion of The Places in Between, Lab Girl, and Wild that dares us to challenge the limits we place on ourselves and the natural world.Īs a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she craved-to be an explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and metaphysician-had gone extinct. Lands of Lost Borders carried me up into a state of openness and excitement I haven't felt for years.
