Bottlemania
How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It
Royte, Elizabeth
Hardcover
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BOOK SYNOPSIS
An incisive, intrepid, and habit-changing narrative investigation into the commercialization of our most basic human need: drinking water.Having already surpassed milk and beer, and second now only to soda, bottled water is on the verge of becoming the most popular beverage in the country. The brands have become so ubiquitous that were hardly conscious that Poland Spring and Evian were once real springs, bubbling in remote corners of Maine and France. Only now, with the water industry trading in the billions of dollars, have we begun to question what it is were drinking and why.In this intelligent, eye-opening work of narrative journalism, Elizabeth Royte does for water what Eric Schlosser did for fast food: she finds the people, machines, economies, and cultural trends that bring it from nature to our supermarkets. Along the way, she investigates the questions we must inevitably answer. Who owns our water? What happens when a bottled-water company stakes a claim on your towns source? Should we have to pay for water? Is the stuff coming from the tap completely safe? And if so, how many chemicals are dumped in to make it potable? Whats the environmental footprint of making, transporting, and disposing of all those plastic bottles?A riveting chronicle of one of the greatest marketing coups of the twentieth century as well as a powerful environmental wake-up call, Bottlemania is essential reading for anyone who shells out two dollars to quench their daily thirst.
AUTHOR BIO
Elizabeth Royte has written for the New York Times Magazine, Harpers, National Geographic, Outside, Smithsonian, and the New Yorker. She is the author of Garbage Land and The Tapirs Morning Bath.
BOOK REVIEWS
An easy-to-swallow survey. after you read it you will sip warily from your water bottle (whether purchased or tap, plastic or not), as freaked out by your own role in todays insidious water wars as by Roytes recommended ecologically responsible drink: Toilet to tap. Lisa Margonelli, New York Times Book ReviewLight and easy-to-read narrativelots of interesting factoids Providence Journal-BulletinAt a time of climate change and increasing risks to global water supplies, we must change the way we think about this crucial resource and begin treating it as a public good to be preserved, rather than the equivalent of an oil deposit or timber forest, ripe for corporate exploitation. New ScientistAn intriguing look at a totem of the ultramodern, perhaps selfish, way we live now Time Out Chicago"a well-balanced, interesting and instructive book about our fundamental human need to drink water" Chicago Sun TimesSeamlessly blending scientific explanation and social observation" LA Times Book Review"Bottlemania makes the case that it's not in our interests to let private multinational corporations float their boats on our nation's water. That's not democracy, it's dam-ocracy, and it could damn us all if we let their unquenchable thirst for profit take precedence over our right to clean, safe, free drinking water." Kerry Trueman, Huffingtonpost.comAn intrepid, intelligent analysis of Americans raging thirst for bottled water. BookPageAn essential, if somewhat disturbing, read. VeryShortList.com"A breezy, accessible history of water through the ages....a good account of the tensions in the little town of Fryeburg, Maine." New York Post"A sharp indictment of the bottled-water industry" New York ObserverInformative Meghan ORourke, Slate.com"Compelling and dynamic" Library JournalEntertaining and eye-opening Publishers Weekly Bottlemania is eye-opening and informative; you will never look at water either "designer" or tap in quite the same way. Royte demonstrates how everything is, in the end, truly connected. Elizabeth KolbertRoyte deserves credit for her tenacity and well-balanced approach.Lively investigative journalism." Kirkus Reviews
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MORE BOOK INFO
ISBN: 1596913711
ISBN(13-digit): 9781596913714
Dewey Decimal: 338.4/766361
Library of Congress: 2007052067
Book Publisher: St Martins Pr
Language: ENG
No. of Pages: 248
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