The Bibliovore's Wife

Welcome to the first post in what will be something quite different from what I’ve done over the last few years of posting to this blog and to The Renaissance Biologist! Taking a cue from Write Useful Books , I would like to use at least the few months of 2025, or however long it takes, to share with you live-ish updates on my process for writing a book that’s been on my heart for a few years. As you might have gathered from hints in 2023 and 2024, the Bibliovore and I constitute a pair of neurodivergent (or nearly neurodivergent) adults and parents. Because of that, our parenting and interaction styles are likely different from many in the general population. The book, on neurodivergent (ND) parenting and CM-style home education, is an expression of that. I hope it will help you if you (1) think you’re ND, (2) know you’re ND, and/or (3) are married to someone ND.  Specifically, the book will look at ways to incorporate the ND into parenting and education from a Christian perspecti...

Which do you have more of, intrinsic or extrinsic motivation? What motivates you to learn and to educate yourself? In Charlotte Mason education, intrinsic motivation attached to inborn curiosity is the  focus, while teachers' "talky-talky" is kept to a minimum and grades are omitted in place of continuing with the content until each child masters it. She also says that " all education is self-education ." How does that work with adults who are done with formal school but not done with learning? In our family, both sides have historically been self-educators who never stopped reading for pleasure and knowledge no matter how much formal schooling we completed (which was a lot). This year, for the Bibliovore, wife, and Eldest, here's what we did to self-educate! (Next week, I'll share my complete reading list from this year.) The Bibliovore's Self-Education His focus areas this year have been the autism spectrum, generative AI, and, continually, history...

Around this time of year, sometimes a month or two earlier, one tends to run across resource lists or resource guides for celebrating holidays in a particular fashion. At least two of my neighbors had Christmas trees up a full month ago, and many others tossed carved or whole pumpkins to the curb starting in late September. I'm a more church-year kind of girl, and decided to use an older sense of " resource " for this post. There are zero specific product recommendations (at least those that require purchase). I hope you enjoy the ideas! Cross-posted to my Substack . Atmosphere of the Home If you scan this post, you might notice that I took a line from Charlotte Mason  in designing my headings. In our household, we've started home education before finding out we were autistic and also well before Child gets old enough to "attend" school. I'm also a second-generation homeschooler, with at least 2 family members likely on the spectrum, so I have some  expe...

In terms of content I'm very familiar with, this post does not fit into that category. However, it's been a topic of marital conversation often enough that I wanted to pull together my ability to find and analyze sources to learn by writing. In my head, the best organization for the post works by starting with defining terms, then outlining three thoughtful steps or principles to help give a gentle answer to atheists one encounters in corners of the Internet. If you're looking for a solid apologetics course to prepare yourself, I plan to take this free 20-hour video course from the C. S. Lewis Institute over semester break this year. I'll likely write on it and work in the content if it goes well (which I fully expect that it will)! The publication date is significant: today is the Feast of St. Lucy . Traditionally, she wore candles on her head and brought sustenance to Christians in catecombs during the Diocletian persecution. Her feast day is also an ember day , i.e...

In our family, I am the book dog-earer. One criterion that determines which books I consider writing book reflections on is how much I dog-ear (or, if the Bibliovore brought them into the marriage, how much I want  to dog-ear) them. One Faith No Longer : The Transformation of Christianity in Red and Blue America, by George Yancey and Ashlee Quosigk, suggested by Alisa Childers in a video some time ago, falls in the first category. So, here you go! As a reminder, here's the general outline of this post: I will . . . Contextualize the author's writings as a whole (bibliography) Bring the author's major ideas to the present day Comment on major sections of the book, or important chapters, depending on organization Authors' Bibliography Yancey, a Baylor professor, is the more seasoned co-author; he has written widely on American Christianity in relationship to racial topics, progressivism, and culture (topics). I think his skill in crafting subtitles is excellent. From olde...

Up till about two years ago, I hadn't even heard of the term "Christian Platonism." Then, I was exposed to it a few times in the context of the Surprised by Hope book discussion class the Bibliovore and I co-led at a previous congregation. We didn't have time to get into the details at all, but named one of our children after an early Christian Platonist, so I figured that now is a good time for me to learn more about the concept with you. Definitions In order to define Christian Platonism, we need to have a sense of what its predecessors were/are. These are, mainly, Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Christianity. (Sources are, respectively,  Britannica , Britannica , and World History Encyclopedia .) Platonism developed out of Socrates' influence, because Plato was a pupil of Socrates. Both were Greek philosophers who thought, taught, and wrote about "the good life." Plato's surviving works are usually taken to summarize his views, but as the Bibliovo...