A Contemporary Manual About Old Garments

The Consumer’s Guide to Vintage Clothing, by Terry McCormick (Dembner: $11.95).

You can tell this is a fun and heartfelt book as soon as you get to the introduction (“To Mark Weiss, who gives unstintingly of his support, if less generously of his closet space, and to Kate, Jan and Abbie, because they’ve had to live with a mom who dresses funny”) and to the table of contents, which has chapter titles such as “Cleanliness Is Next to Unreasonable” and “If It Has a Zipper, It’s Not From the 1890s.”

Even better news is that McCormick knows her stuff, whether she’s discussing alternatives to mothballs, fur repair or the art of running a vintage clothing shop.

She also provides a plentiful appendix.