As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she craved--to be an explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and metaphysician--had gone extinct. 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. Looking beyond this planet, she decided to become a scientist and go to Mars. In between studying at Oxford and MIT, Harris set off by bicycle...

In Everything Under the Heavens, 16-year old Johanna fled Cambaluc -- and her murderous stepmother-- joining her uncle's westbound caravan on the Silk Road. With her foster brother Jaufre and a few faithful companions, they made it to the rooftop of the world--Terak Pass-- separating Mongol China from the scattered sheikdoms of the Persian empire. Then, disaster struck.

"Raised in a prosperous family of 14th century Chinese merchants, by the age of sixteen Wu Johanna's world reaches from Japan in the east to Tajikistan in the west. It's a world seen from camelback, through tent flaps, and in the cool, shaded caravanserai where travelers and traders gather along the Silk Road. Hers is a world of spice merchants and pearl divers, bandits and troubadours, servants and sheikhs. A world in which trust is more valuable...