Shower liner cleaning made easy

Wamsutta has taken a bit of the hassle out of cleaning a shower curtain liner.

The shower curtain that's part of the company's Disney Resort Collection has a hidden zipper so the liner can be removed easily. The curtain can be left hanging on the rod while the liner is in the wash.

The curtain comes in a classic white, waffle-weave fabric. It can be ordered at www.disneyresortcollection.com for $55 plus shipping.

Donate textbooks

Q: Do you know where we could donate used college textbooks? Libraries do not take them.

— Louisa Misquitt, Akron, Ohio

A: Although the libraries I checked don't take donated textbooks for their collections, they will accept them for used-book sales. They include Akron-Summit County Public Library and the libraries at the University of Akron and Kent State University.

If you're willing to pay to mail the books, there are organizations that will distribute them to others.

A few are Books Through Bars (www.booksthrough bars.org), which takes introductory-level college textbooks for prison libraries; Books For Africa (www.books for africa.org), which distributes books in 37 countries; the Global Book Exchange (http://book exchange.marin.org), which provides books to schools, nonprofit organizations and other recipients; and Better World Books (www.better world.com), which sells them to raise money for nonprofit literacy programs, sends them to nonprofit organizations or recycles them if they're unsuitable for either of those uses.

Check the Web sites for donation guidelines and shipping instructions.

Inside governor's home

Since 1957, a grand house in Bexley has been home to Ohio's governors and their families. Now we're all invited inside through the essays and photos of "Our First Family's Home: The Ohio Governor's Residence and Heritage Garden."

The book covers the history of the home, a Jacobethan Revival house completed in 1924 for industrialist Malcolm D. Jeffrey. It has had convicted murderers from the Ohio Penitentiary on its staff and has welcomed future Presidents John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush.

It's available online at www.ohioswallow.com.

It's been the site of several wedding receptions, including one to which advice columnist Ann Landers showed up a week early. It's also been a family home, with an alligator in one of the bathtubs when C. William O'Neill was raising two kids there and a treehouse out back during Richard Celeste's tenure.

Much of the book is dedicated to the Heritage Garden, developed by first lady Hope Taft. The garden is a series of miniature ecosystems representing regions of the state, and it includes a Woodland Wildflower Garden that incorporates plants saved by the Akron Garden Club from land slated for development.

"Our First Family's Home" is edited by Mary Alice Mairose and illustrated by the photographs of Ian Adams and botanical art of Dianne McElwain. It's available online at www.ohioswallow.com.