Kate Harris – författare

A woman recounts her life-changing bicycling journey along the Silk Road in this award-winning travelogue and memoir.As a teenager, Kate Harris wanted to be an explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and metaphysician. With the Earth already mapped by the likes of Magellan and Marco Polo, she set her sights on the stars: she would become a scientist and go to Mars. But in between studying at Oxford and MIT, she set off by bicycle with a childhood friend down the fabled Silk Road, where, pedaling mile upon mile through some of the remotest places, she realized that exploration—in any day or age—is the refusal to live between the lines. Forget charting maps, naming peaks: what she yearned for was the feeling of soaring completely out of bounds. The farther she traveled, the closer she came to a world as wild as she felt within.Lands of Lost Borders is the chronicle of Harris’s odyssey and an exploration of the importance of breaking the boundaries we set ourselves; an examination of the stories borders tell, and the restrictions they place on nature and humanity; and a meditation on the existential need to explore—the essential longing to discover what in the universe we are doing here. Harris ponders the nature of limits and the wildness of the self that can never fully be mapped. Weaving adventure and philosophy with the history of science and exploration, her intimate, mind-expanding travelogue celebrates our connection as humans to the natural world, and ultimately to each other—a belonging that transcends any fences or stories that may divide us.

"Lands of Lost Borders carried me up into a state of openness and excitement I haven’t felt for years. It’s a modern classic."—Pico IyerA 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.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 down the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel. Pedaling mile upon mile in some of the remotest places on earth, she realized that an explorer, in any day and age, is the kind of person who refuses to live between the lines. Forget charting maps, naming peaks: what she yearned for was the feeling of soaring completely out of bounds. The farther she traveled, the closer she came to a world as wild as she felt within.Lands of Lost Borders, winner of the 2018 Banff Adventure Travel Award and a 2018 Nautilus Award, is the chronicle of Harris’s odyssey and an exploration of the importance of breaking the boundaries we set ourselves; an examination of the stories borders tell, and the restrictions they place on nature and humanity; and a meditation on the existential need to explore—the essential longing to discover what in the universe we are doing here.Like Rebecca Solnit and Pico Iyer, Kate Harris offers a travel account at once exuberant and reflective, wry and rapturous. Lands of Lost Borders explores the nature of limits and the wildness of the self that can never fully be mapped. Weaving adventure and philosophy with the history of science and exploration, Lands of Lost Borders celebrates our connection as humans to the natural world, and ultimately to each other—a belonging that transcends any fences or stories that may divide us.

The bond between birds of prey and humans is a primal relationship that has existed for many thousands of years. Working with hunting birds is still integral to many cultures, and falconry is again popular today as humans seek a more meaningful relationship with nature.The foundations of falconry lie within the bond between falconer and bird, which is rooted in the bird’s natural survival instincts and its feeling safe in that relationship.Falconry offers the novice falconer a compact, illustrated introduction to the art and practice of falconry. Illustrated with more than 300 images, many of which provide precise step-by-step instructions, the book teaches the enthusiast how to familiarize a bird through ‘manning’ , building a bond with a bird, training with a lure, training using a glove, managing a bird’s diet and weight, hooding, and free flight training, among many other skills and techniques.Illustrated with 300 photographs that will instruct and inspire, Falconry is a fascinating pictorial celebration of this craft which dates back to as early as 2,000 BC.