English Summary/英文概要： 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 we’re 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 we’re 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 town’s 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? What’s 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.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 「水」是人們的基本需求，在重視生活品質的現代社會，飲用瓶裝水成為日常的生活習慣。便利商店裡的瓶裝水總類繁多，瓶裝水銷量已超過牛奶、啤酒僅次於汽水。然而所謂的礦泉水、深層水、鹼性水等令人目不暇給的品牌與種類，我們真的了解手中正在飲用的水嗎？！
瓶裝水對於環境已造成重大影響。製造水與瓶裝水容器的過程更消耗了許多能源。在全球鼓吹節能的風潮下，不喝瓶裝水的主張逐漸被重視。此書深入探討瓶裝水的歷史、產業結構、水源污染及文化社會等面向，提供對於瓶裝水的深層反思。

Awards/获奖情况： Reviews
The New York Times Front Page Review:–LISA MARGONELLI, June 15, 2008
"The facile answer is marketing, marketing and more marketing, but Elizabeth Royte goes much deeper into the drink, streaming trends cultural, economic, political and hydrological into an engaging investigation of an unexpectedly murky substance." Full review
San Francisco Chronicle--Abe Streep
"[A] timely, densely reported but also very readable and distressing examination of the way we drink. The reader comes away with the creepy notion that every last clean drop on the planet is already accounted for - either being muddied with pollutants and then zapped with disinfectants by municipal systems, or pumped and sold as a luxury item." Full review
Los Angeles Times--Mark Coleman
"This tautly paced volume more closely resembles a travel narrative than a tree-hugging jeremiad. Seamlessly blending scientific explanation and social observation, she pursues the course of Poland Spring back to its source in Fryeburg, Maine. " Full review
New York Post-- MAX SCHULZ, May 18, 2008
“Royte does provide a breezy, accessible history of water through the ages, from the ancient Romans and Egyptians to the massive Croton Reservoir, with walls 50 feet high and 25 feet thick, that sat on the site of what is now the New York Public Library.” Full review
Elizabeth Kolbert
“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.”
Kirkus Reviews
"Royte deserves credit for her tenacity and well-balanced approach….Lively investigative journalism."