I have manila folders where I’ve saved the Books & Beyond columns I’ve written. Since March is my birthday month, I thought a gift to me would be researching the history of writing these columns.

So I’ll write a brief description of each March column, beginning in 2015.

2015: “The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina: Rebels Against Slavery,” author Gilda Lerner, c1967. (I also saved the Nov. 21-22, 2015 Weekender. This edition lists (how many?) names of people who’ve contributed to writing articles for the paper, and my name is on the list.)

2016: “Haunted Ground: a novel,” by Minnesota author Erin Hart, c 2003. Erin Hart was at the Marshall-Lyon County Library with her husband, Paddy O’Brien, at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 15 this year. I looked up the word “craic,” because I had forgotten that it means fun And entertainment.

2017: “Grover Cleveland, Again! A Treasury of American Presidents,” c 2016. In this column, I wrote briefly about my Grandma Renner’s Holy Bible. In this Bible there’s a torn page from a magazine with poems and prose about Grover Cleveland.

2018: I wrote about Willa Cather’s book “My Antonia,” published first in 1918. The highlight in this-column was that I wrote that several years ago’ my husband Howard and I went to Red Cloud, Nebraska. In the town, we went into The Opera House where Cather gave the commencement speech when she graduated from high school in 1890.

2019: In his book of poems — “From the Mountain, From the Valley: New & Collected Poems” — the author, James Still, began with an autobiographical essay titled “A Man Singing to Himself.” We learn that he was drafted to serve in World War II.

2020 The book I reviewed in this Books & Beyond is “The Dutch House,” by Ann Patchett. As I write today, I’m looking for this book in my house, because I know I bought it. Danny, one of the two main characters, is the narrator. He goes back and forth telling his life story.

2021: The copyright of JoJo Moyes’ book “Giver of Stars” is 2019. The author was born in England. This book takes place in Kentucky, where she did live at some point. Alice Vancleve is the main character in the book. I read about how there was delivery of books for seven years by women who lived in rural Kentucky. (Some of my paternal Renner ancestors lived in Rockcastle County, Kentucky.)

2022: This Books & Beyond is about Gary Burghoff’s memoir “To M*A*S*H and Back: My Life in Poems and Songs”. Now I want to tell you that Howard and I always watched MASH on television, and now I have a set of these programs on DVDs.

2023: Another book I loved and wrote about in March 2023 was “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou, c 1969. It’s about the lives of a black family. I need to find my copy of this book. I wrote “Chapter 18 is one I will read over and over again.”

2024: I hope we all have good memories of where we grew up. That’s what I wrote about in 2024, and there’s a photo of the schoolhouse in Ferguson where I attended from Grade 2 to Grade 12. The school didn’t have a kindergarten yet, and I could already read. That’s why they moved me to Grade 2 when I started school.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this Books & Beyond. I am happy when I’m with a friend who tells me about her (or his) family experiences. We could all write a book about this. I’ve told you before that my living brother and sisters live in Oregon, Colorado, and Maine. My daughter and her husband live in Wisconsin. So one of the ways I travel now is to read books.

If your trip down memory lane includes sorting through boxes of slides, 8mm film, or VHS tapes, schedule a time to use the Mark S. Goodenow Preservation lab to transfer them to digital versions. For more information, contact the Marshall-Lyon County Library marshalllyonlibrary.org.