Laundry: The Home Comforts Book of Caring for Clothes and Linens (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "The automated home laundry is a great boon to comfort and happiness..." (more)
Key Phrases: mild detergent containing, antiwrinkling treatments, vigorous laundering, United States, Energy Star, Sea Island (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

For Cheryl Mendelson laundering is the best part of housekeeping. It's full of physical pleasures -- the look of favorite clothes restored to freshness and beauty, the tactile satisfaction of crisp linens in beautifully folded stacks. Good laundering preserves things you love and protects your pocket book. It doesn't take much time or effort. What it takes is knowledge, and Laundry is the comprehensive, entertaining, and inspiring new book on the art of laundering.

Culled from the bestselling Home Comforts, with revised and updated information and a new introduction, Laundry is an indispensable guide to caring for all the cloth in one's home: from kitchen rags to bedding, hand-washables, and baby clothes to vintage linens. Mendelson offers detailed guidance on when to disregard labels, removing stains, making environmentally informed choices, sewing, and storing clothing and fabrics. A much-needed antidote to the standard-issue how-to manual, Laundry celebrates the satisfactions of ironing, folding, and caring for clothes and linens. Both pragmatic and eloquent, Mendelson provides beginning and veteran homemakers with a seamless combination of reliable instruction, time-tested advice, and fascinating personal narrative.

As a farm girl in Pennsylvania, Mendelson -- who is a philosopher, lawyer, and professor, as well as a homemaker, wife, and mother -- received a classic domestic education from her grandmothers, aunts, and mother. Laundry combines the best of the traditional lore they taught her with the latest in technical and scientific information. Writing with infectious love and respect for her subject, Mendelson is sure to instill in readers a newfound affection and appreciation for the art of laundering.

About the Author

Cheryl Mendelson is a Harvard Law School graduate, a sometime philosophy professor, a novelist (Morningside Heights and Love, Work, Children), and a homemaker by choice. Born into a rural family in Greene County, Pennsylvania, she now lives in New York City with her husband and son.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (October 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743271459
• ISBN-13: 978-0743271455
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #122,288 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

79 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Better off with "Home Comforts", November 7, 2005

By	Michael Shields (San Francisco) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Home Comforts" has been so helpful and authoritative that I preordered "Laundry" as soon as it was announced. I was very disappointed to find that it consisted almost entirely of material taken from her previous book. If Cheryl Mendelson feels that she needs to revise "Home Comforts", she should go over the entire book and bring out a second edition.

If you already have "Home Comforts", you don't need to buy "Laundry"; and if you don't have "Home Comforts", you need to buy it. But I see little reason to buy "Laundry". I am returning my copy.

61 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Chapters 14-28 of Home Comforts now reissued in hardcover , October 8, 2005

By	R. Webster (PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Laundry is simply recycled and slightly refined material from Mendelson's Home Comforts. If you already own Home Comforts, I would skip Laundry (or if you must have it, wait until the paperback comes out, likely some time next year). If, however, you don't care about food storage, bathroom cleaning, domestic employment laws, fireplaces, resilient flooring materials, "other components of household dust," and you just want a well written, thorough, up-to-date guide to clothes and linens, then Laundry is a fine purchase, worth the current price.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Expansion and Improvement, October 21, 2005

By	Anonymous "Anonymous" (Connecticut) - See all my reviews

Laundry is an expansion of a chapter of Home Comforts, true, but that expansion could be very worthwhile to someone interested in really organizing their home-laundering process (which sounds pompous, but that's what it is when you toss all that stuff in the washer). While it's true this isn't a necessary text it's certainly a noble contribution, and Mendelson's prose is still a delight.