Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It

Elizabeth Royte's new book explains why bottled water is one of the greatest marketing coups of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Here's an excerpt:

"The outrageous success of bottled water, in a country where more than 89 percent of tap water meets or exceeds federal health and safety regulations, regularly wins in blind taste tests against name-brand waters, and costs 240 to 10,000 times less than bottled water, is an unparalleled social phenomenon, one of the greatest marketing coups of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But why did the marketing work? At least part of the answer, I'm beginning to understand, is that bottled water plays into our ever-growing laziness and impatience."