A journey along the greatest land route on earth: out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran and into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron covers some seven thousand miles in eight months. Making his way by local bus, truck, car, donkey cart and camel, he travels from the tomb of the Yellow Emperor to the ancient port of Antioch. The Silk Road is a huge network of arteries splitting and...

1760s, Spitalfields. Esther Thorel, wife of a master silk weaver, rescues Sara Kemp from a brothel thinking she is doing God's will, but her good deed is not returned. Sara, realizing the Thorel household is built on hypocrisy and lies, tires of the drudgery of life as Esther's maid. Esther yearned to be a silk designer, but her water colors are dismissed by her husband, Elias, as the daubs of a foolish girl. Bisby Lambert is brought in by Elias to...

"In 9th century China, a little girl sends a small jade pebble to travel with her father along the Silk Road. The pebble passes from his hand all the way to the Republic of Venice, the end of the Silk Road, where a boy cherishes it and sees the value of this gift from a girl at the end of the road"--

"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...

Stories from the journey along the ancient trade route between East and West. Includes tales of dragons, demons, goddesses and spirits, with sumptuous illustrations and intriguing facts.

When corrupt Roman leader Tiberius arrives with a giant army to claim the Silk Road, Huo An and his group of trained warriors teams up with an elite legion of defected Roman soldiers led by General Lucius to maintain the delicate balance of power in the region. To protect his country and his new friends, Huo An gathers the warriors of thirty-six ethnic nations together to fight Tiberius in an incredible epic battle.

A food writer travels the Silk Road, immersing herself in a moveable feast of foods and cultures and discovering some surprising truths about commitment, independence, and love.

"Our world was made on and by the Silk Roads. For millennia it was here that East and West encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas and cultures, the birth of the world's great religions, the appetites for foreign goods that drove economies and the growth of nations. From the first cities in Mesopotamia to the growth of Greece and Rome to the depredations by the Mongols and the Black Death to the Great Game...