10 best books of August: the Monitor's picks

Few have the guts or the stamina to bicycle the famed Silk Road, the ancient route of Marco Polo. Fewer still possess the considerable talent of Kate Harris that allowed her to write of her adventures – about everything from the hospitality of the Turkish people to the frustration of negotiating a visa to enter Azerbaijan. Harris shares her experiences, but she also explores the very concept of “borders,”In a masterly narrative of place, people, and nature, journalist Earl Swift studies Tangier Island and its residents. Tangier Island is a dwindling pancake of land, surrounded by the unruly waters of the Chesapeake Bay, and perhaps doomed to be one of the first United States communities eliminated by climate change as waters climb higher and threaten to engulf the 1.3-square-mile island.