“The Sears Christmas Wish Book was, for me, a kind of foundational text — a secular counterpoint to the Bible stories I learned around...
“You hear how there’s many words for snow in native cultures in Canada; there are actually over 20 words for ‘fog’ in the Faroe...
“Beliefs are contagious. The stories we tell take on their own logic and become real, in a way. As travelers in another culture part...