An Almanac of Birds by Maria Popova

A handsome deck of oversized cards nested inside a “book safe” — a popular Victorian decoy for concealing valuables and love letters inside a box built into a thick tome to be shelved in the family library, passing for an ordinary book.

Accompanying the 100 cards in the box is a small pamphlet (featuring a 19th-century typeface called Cormorant) containing an essay about the story and process behind this unexpected visitation of the muse.