Nick Middleton

The Silk Road is a fabled route that has been shaped by some of the most extraordinary tracts of land on this planet. A vast region separating China from the Mediterranean, it is one of the least hospitable places on earth - a succession of hostile deserts and towering mountain ranges, a harsh terrain of howling winds, searing heat and blistering cold.

This is groundbreaking geographer and broadcaster Nick Middleton's extraordinary account of surviving the life-sapping Gobi desert, the icy passes of Tibet, and the great steppes of Kazakhstan. Weaving together personal experience of almost ridiculous endurance - sleeping on steaming rocks in the middle of a sub-zero desert and courting altitude sickness in otherwise meditative Tibet - with the bigger picture of our planet's new 'lost worlds' and their peoples, this is brilliant adventure writing from a man who has dared to go places that often history has feared to tread.

Click here for Marion's full-length review of Extremes Along the Silk Road, which appeared in Turkey's national English-language newspaper, Sunday's Zaman.