The Bibliovore's Wife

Intro: focusing on re-reading and *trying* to slow down to avoid book gluttony , but I still exceeded my 2023 count by a lot. It was very helpful to have 4-6 books going at once (a Mother Culture idea), so I always had one available that would fit my mood and energy. Here's what I finished reading in 2024, organized by month but highlighted by topic. (Key: 👂 Audible, 🔖 Re-Reads, ✟ Christian Faith, 🧪 Science/Autism and Evolution, 💤 Lighter Fare, 📚 Education) January Books finished:  J. R. R. Tolkien. Two Towers. 👂🔖 P. Magness. Church Music for the Care of Souls. ✟ M. Bird. Religious Freedom in a Secular Age. ✟ J. R. R. Tolkien. Return of the King. 👂🔖 S. Cain. Bittersweet. 💤 J. Polkinghorne. Belief in God in an Age of Science. ✟ 🧪 D. Venema & S. McKnight. Adam and the Genome. ✟ 🧪 D. O. Lamoreux, J. H. Walton, C. J. Collins, & W. D. Barrick. Four Views on the Historical Adam. ✟ 🧪 February Books finished:  J. Walton & N. T. Wright. The Lost World of Genes...

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...

I hope you enjoyed last week's post  that pairs well with this one. The background research and thinking ideas over for my upcoming book is continuing to go slowly but surely. This post is the second one specifically addressing my target audience, neurodiverse Christian homeschoolers. The fundamental question I am asking and (hopefully) answering: what should a mother read to prepare for this venture? Neurodiversity in Women Compared to men, women are diagnosed  with ADHD or autism spectrum disorders later in life and often initially with mental health conditions. Many symptoms present differently, and possible differences in masking due to neurobiology and socialization mean that women might not suspect a neurodiverse condition until later. While I don't have a diagnosed case of autism, all the signs point that way. How did I come to suspect that's the case? The Bibliovore had long known of one neurodiverse diagnosis and suspected autism as a second. Most of the traits tha...