I am always excited to find a beautifully bound series of classic books to read and love first,  and then admire forevermore. My decorating clients all come to believe in my doctrine: books make a house feel like a home. They also make the place personal and tell your story. (And yes, I am a journalist, and a stylist, and a decorator, and little frazzled these days.)

Two new discoveries from a recent spin through Barnes & Noble:

These black-and-white paperback versions of America’s founding papers are new from Penguin, just in time for election season. The series of six includes the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, Lincoln’s Speeches and Supreme Court Decisions. About $10 each at Barnes & Noble.

Wouldn’t that be a fantastic presence in a home with kids learning about our country?

Also, the covers are letterpressed. Yes. Penguin knows women today.

Second discovery: Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets — tiny little books in bright colors and gorgeous cloth underneath. Kipling, Dickinson, Frost, Keats, Browning — all present here.

And Rainer Maria Rilke, of course — who penned one of my favorite lines, as a reporter and lover of confidences: “I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”

I brought home a few mini volumes in gray for my house:

Pretty, aren’t they? $10 to $12 each.

P.S. I’m sure you already know about the famous brightly-hued Penguin Classics series designed by Coralie Bickford Smith (seen below), but I love particularly her series titled “The F. Scott Fitzgeralds.” I love him to distraction.

P.P.S. Did you know his name was really Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald? Indeed.