The heading of the e-mail read: "Staycation your way to the exotic." And I thought: This is probably the fastest that a new obnoxious noun has been transmogrified into a verb.

Which was sort of interesting, since the press release was about Berlitz. "Staycation your way to the exotic" was just another way of saying: "Struggle to learn a foreign language."

This was the closest any of the countless press releases about the 10-letter word have come to mentioning what is - to me at least - the obvious activity for a stay at home vacation: reading travel books.

And there are a bunch of new ones to choose from.

The Wild Places, by Robert Macfarlane. A journey through the untamed parts of England and Ireland. Got a glowing review in Sunday's New York Times Book Review.

Traversa, by Fran Sandham. The account of a walk from the coast of Namibia to the coast of Tanzania. For everyone who's said there are no more travel adventures left.

City of Heavenly Tranquility: Beijing in the History of China, by Jasper Becker. The checkered past of a city - its vast culture and rich characters - that is slowly disappearing.

Zeus: A Journey Through Greece in the Footsteps of a God, by Tom Stone. An intriguing mix of travel and mythology.

Strolling in Macau, by Steven K. Bailey. A small, informative and well-written guide by a former Sun-Sentinel freelancer.