My book collection expanded a bit last month, so I thought today would be a good day to share my newest literary acquisitions. I’m joining some book memes today, and I urge you to check out the other entries: Stacking the Shelves, Sunday Post and The Sunday Salon.

Here are the new residents of my bookcase:

• Daughter of Fortune, by Isabel Allende
  If you know me, you know that there’s a serious competition between Margaret Atwood and Isabel Allende going on on my bookshelves. Isabel won this round. You might know her from her most famous work, The House of the Spirits. That book is actually part of a trilogy, and Daughter of the Fortune is the first one in the series.
  Price: $10 | Bought at a little indie bookstore in Bracebridge

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• Portrait in Sepia, by Isabel Allende
  This is the second book in this trilogy about the Del Valle family. While Daughter of Fortune is set in the 1840s, with Chilean workers moving to the U.S. to join the gold rush, Portrait in Sepia is set at the end of the 19th century in Chile, during the Chilean Civil War. This novel explores the theme of memory and family secrets.
  Price: $15 | Bought at a little indie bookstore in Bracebridge

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• The House of Doors, by Tan Twan Eng
  I read this book last year in e-book format and enjoyed it so much that I wanted to have a physical copy of it. And then I read a second book by Eng and wanted a copy of that too. It was hard to find those books in the small bookstores I usually go to, so I ended up finding a box with all his 3 books online. This one talks about the relationship of a well-to-do couple with the writer Willie Somerset Maugham during his stay in Penang, Malaysia.
  Price: $75 (set of 3 books) | Bought at Amazon

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• The Garden of Evening Mists, by Tan Twan Eng
  This is the second of Eng’s books I’ve read, and it’s even more delightful than the first one. Also set in Malaysia, this is centred around a judge who spent her life prosecuting Japanese war criminals. The story goes back to her youth, when right after escaping a war camp she meets an enigmatic Japanese gardener and has to work with him to make her sister’s wishes come true.
  Price: $75 (set of 3 books) | Bought at Amazon

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• The Gift of Rain, by Tan Twan Eng
  This is the only one of his books that I haven’t read yet. It’s set also in Penang, in the 1930s and tells the story of a Chinese-British man in search of belonging. He starts a friendship with a Japanese diplomat, but when Japan invades Malaysia, their relationship becomes complicated. This seems similar to The Garden of Evening Mists, although it was written before, but I’m excited to see the differences.
  Price: $75 (set of 3 books) | Bought at Amazon

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• The Love of a Good Woman, by Alice Munro
  I finally got to read Alice Munro this year, sadly in the same year that she passed away. I’ve been enjoying Dear Life a lot, so I decided to get some more books from her. This one was on a list of must-reads by her and is centred around the lives of women and their hidden desires.
  Price: $8.99 | Bought at BMV

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• Dance of the Happy Shades, by Alice Munro
  This was another one of the titles in the 5 must-read books by Alice Munro. It’s another short story collection (as far as I can tell she didn’t write novels) and the theme seems to be similar to Dear Life: life in small towns in Canada, where the tragic and the mundane coexist in a delicate balance.
  Price: $9.99 | Bought at BMV

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What about you? Which books have recently made their way into your shelves?