Book Log 2020 #58: Lands of Lost Borders by Kate Harris

The author, midway through a Ph.D. program with an eye towards becoming an astronaut, decided to reclaim her youthful fascination with explorers like Marco Polo. This book is the chronicle of her adventure of cycling the Silk Road from Europe to Asia with a friend from previous cycling trips.

Along the way, the author mixes her own thoughts of what it means to be an explorer in the modern age with a variety of historical, scientific, and personal details. This gives a much broader scope to what could have been a straightforward travelogue. The day to day also provides a lot of color, between funny things that happen on the road and the challenges of being two women on a continent-spanning bike trip. 

It doesn't appear that she's written any books since this one, but I am hopeful we'll hear more about her travels in the future.