A longtime friend of this site has had a stroke — mild, blessedly — and is in rehab. She reports: “This city has the most heavily chlorinated water I have ever tasted. At home, I have a big Britta system — here, I basically had to abstain. My sister ordered me a Bobble Water Bottle. Now water tastes just great. The Bobble is cheap, and the filters are cheap too. One of the best Butler recommendations ever!" 

My friends at The Book Report Network are thinking about creating a book website for the college/twentysomething demographic, so they’ve created a survey for 17-to-30 year-olds. If you still dwell in this demo, would you weigh in? If these years are behind you, please share this with 17-30 year-olds you know. Those who complete the survey are eligible to win one of 100 $25 gift cards to the bookstore of their choice. The CO-20 Survey is open until October 15. To take the survey, click here.

Jonathan Franzen was just on the cover of Time Magazine. Now he gets a rave review in The New York Times from the impossible-to-please Michiko Kakutani. So I clicked into Amazon to buy it. "This book will be released on August 31." Ditto Barnes & Noble. [I had hoped to give this book to my wife, the Franzen Fan, for our vacation — out of the country, ending August 31^st. And the book business wonders why, etc….] Here, for the more patient among you, the buying info. To pre-order the book from Amazon, click here. To pre-order the Kindle edition, click here.

Our friend Ron Fried — he wrote Christmas in Paris, 2002 — has a knack for unearthing musical truffles. Like: this melt-the-hardest-heart cover of a Van Morrison classic by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, who, a few years back, starred in a small gem of a film called Once. 

So where was Julia Roberts at the Metropolitan Club party after the New York premiere of Eat Pray Love? At a private after-party, upstairs. Protected by bodyguards. Who didn’t get in? Many, including Elizabeth Gilbert. Best moment: "Roberts did spend about five minutes in the main party room. But as she and her posse — including husband Danny Moder — were hurried out and away from the dreadful real people, Roberts said, to no one in particular, ‘That’s so tacky.’ A lot of the real people heard her say it." Roger Friedman has all the dish.

Georgia Tapert is transitioning from retailing to furniture design, so she’s decided to close her shop. If you need a gift or have little pockets of boredom in your home, you’ll do well to head down to SoHo for lovely glassware, china, table accessories and more at shockingly agreeable prices.

E-mail from a reader: Back in the 90s, I had a copy of An Hour from Paris and enjoyed the couple of trips I tried out. Just prior to a recent Paris trip, I figured one of Ms. Simms’ trips would be perfect for my wife, our nine-month-old, and me. But when I packed the night before our departure, I couldn’t find the book on our shelves! Then I remembered — after spending all of 2007 in Paris, and for some reason having not gone on any "An Hour from Paris" trips, I decided to leave the book behind with a friend. 

I’m a fan of "Guest House," a novel by Barbara K. Richardson that — gasp — wasn’t published by a major New York imprint. [Read about it here. Buy it here.] I’m becoming an even bigger fan of Ms. Richardson, who has invented a new kind of book promotion — she’s taken to the road, reading at truck stops. Call me soft, but I look at this video and think: No way are books dead. Not with writers like this out there.

The non-Hampton up the Hudson will be the scene of a media frenzy when Chelsea Clinton marries What’s His Name there. And then it will, please, slip under the radar again. If you must go to Rhinebeck, my pals at Rural Intelligence offer a field guide to the town’s cool stuff.

A reader reports: “Okay, so I’m a woman of a certain age. I’m sitting in the front row of the play about Thurgood Marshall, and, when it’s over, I stay for the question-and-answer session. I’m wearing a short dress, and I had put on the Sally Hansen leg make up that your wife uses. My friend leaned over and whispered, ‘Laurence Fishburne totally checked out your legs…’ I think this made my decade. I am sending your wife a huge thank you.”

The cruelty of kids to kids didn’t start with Facebook and texting. If your kid is a target — or a bully — a kid’s book set a century ago powerfully shows how this cruelty catches on and grows. And, worse, how good kids get caught up in it and go along with it. The Hundred Dresses, a short, 80-page novel could change – or save — a life. 

It’s like a low-tech app, a “m-book,” if you will. As you’re reading Sheila Weller’s beach-book-and-then-some, Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon — and the Journey of a Generation, you can go to a web site and listen to the songs that made them want to write, as well as the songs they wrote and recorded. With the occasional video and back story.  

When some yahoo — like your kid — says classical music’s a bore, here’s your answer. And the fireworks at the end! Carmina Burana, of course.

Josh Ritter will be at the Tarrytown Music Hall on Saturday, August 7th at 8 PM. It’s a small (800 seats) old bandbox, an ideal venue for a singer/songwriter. If years past are a guide, the Josh/Tarrytown combo is a fine mini-expedition: a pleasant drive, a stroll along the Hudson, dinner at one of the restaurants near the Music Hall, and then Josh and the Royal City Band light the place up.

We have winners in the ticket contest, but maybe you can get interested in second prize. Scale down your expectations. The next four of you to write in can join me at dinner. Dutch treat, but my charming wife and mouthy child will be there. Or you can just buy tickets. Ready…go!

Beryl Bainbridge, a real writer, died on July 2nd. Last year, she wrote a piece about death. Here’s a sample: "I think of death a lot, indeed always have, although when young I had a belief that it was a long way off. Now, it isn’t, and I continually think of how I would prefer to pass from light to darkness. I don’t want to be run down by traffic, be shot by a madman, or suffer a sudden shock to the heart. I would like, if possible, to be so conscious of what was coming that I had time to write down a few thoughts on paper. I would remember my parents, the love I once felt for them, and for my husband who left so many years ago, and try to put into words the joy my dear children have brought me." And here’s all of the piece. 

The music business, Hunter S. Thompson once suggested, is "a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side." So what, one wonders, is Edgar Bronfman Jr., scion of the Seagram liquor empire, doing as the CEO of Warner Music Group? I try to answer that question in my Business Week review of “Fortune’s Fool.” 

Our beautifully renovated West Indian cottage has three bedrooms, two baths, garden living and writing room, and the “best view in the BVI." Terraced landscaping, with bananas, mangos, pineapples and limes. New kitchen and bar, dishwasher, laundry room and studio; with security system. A Caribbean gem located above two bays. Minutes from the beach, but away from the world. $3,500 a month for 6 months. Contact Murray@Ramscale.com.

Steve Carell makes few mistakes, but ‘Dinner for Schmucks’ looks like a whopper. Even the trailer looks unfunny. Too bad, because the premise is amusing — sophisticated men host a dinner to which each brings an idiot, and at the end of the evening, the sophisticated guys choose a winner. Or it was amusing in the original, a French comedy that had no need of Americanization. The French title (‘Diner de Cons’) was translated for export as ‘The Dinner Game’, and if you can find a DVD to rent (or, if you’re in the mood to roll dice, buy it from Amazon here), do it, because this movie is screamingly funny.