Did you know that you are more likely to encounter Worcestershire sauce stains in winter, because it’s a popular ingredient in soups and stews, and that correction fluid stains are most common in April, during tax time and university exam time? Did you know that white wine can remove red wine stains, and that gravy stains most commonly appear on sleeves? You can read up on almost every manner of mess in Field Guide to Stains: How to Identify and Remove Virtually Every Stain Known to Man by Virginia M. Friedman, et al. (Quirk Books). This thick little book is complete with high-resolution photographs of various fabrics stained with model airplane glue, soot, vomit, lipstick, pollen, hummus, windshield wiper fluid and everything else. It’s a tome of useful information (soak yogurt stains in tepid water), humour (do not relax your vigilance against berry stains at any time) and trivia (in 14 BCE, affluent Egyptian women wore cones of scented grease on top of their heads; the grease melted as the day wore on, coating the women in a fragrant sheen). This book is a fabulous resource and a delightful read for laundry aficionados and novices alike.