As a follow-up to yesterday’s post with the title question “Should We Stay or Should We Go,” I am facing the dilemma of culling my bookcase – what books should stay and which should go?

Although it is more likely books on my shelves have been read and forgotten, it is with horror that I realized I have books gathering dust I’ve never read. Some were lovely gifts, some were well intentioned purchases for future reference, some I had no idea why they were there. In good conscience I could not give away a book I’d never read, so I ventured into the realms of the forgotten books.

Nora Ephron died too young but left behind a wealth of humor and sarcasm that would have made Dorothy Parker proud. Two years before her death in 2012, Ephron began organizing the 557 page memorial to herself in The Most of Nora Ephron, published in 2013. The book seemed overwhelming when I received it, and because I was one of the many readers who took her death personally, I kept the book but could not read it. Now I am laughing through her descriptions of her ex-husband, the “Jewish prince” who cannot find the butter in the refrigerator in “Heartburn,”and pausing from Ephron’s profiles of famous women to look up Julie Nixon Eisenhower to see if she is still alive (she is).

The Most of Nora Ephron includes her books, plays, scripts, early columns, graduation speech, poems – even a few recipes, some no one should ever make – lima beans and pears in molasses.

I read her entertaining “Afterword” to the screenplay of When Harry Met Sally and her homage to Gourmet Magazine. I skimmed over her irate blogging on the politics of Bush and Cheyney and found her funny and poignant poem on the last page of the book – “What I Will Miss” – anchored with “pie.”

Ephron’s voice came back to life in the pages, and despite pausing to watch Meryl Streep play Ephron in her autobiographical movie, I finished reading it in a day.

Back to what to do now having read The Most of Nora Ephron. I could donate the book to the libary, give it to a friend to enjoy, or return it to the shelf next to my copy of The Most of P. G. Wodehouse. What would Lionel Shriver do?