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E-Book · Free to read · English

Stories of the Persian wars

Herodotus

Herodotus traces a chain of events in Ionia and the Persian court, beginning with Darius’s favor toward Histiæus and his removal to Susa. It then turns to Miletus, where Aristagoras becomes involved in a plan to help exiles from Naxos regain their city, leading Otanes to authorize a large Persian expedition under Megabates. The narrative also recalls earlier civic strife in Miletus and the political calculations behind Persian and Greek alliances.

E-Book · Free to read · English

A tin cup trophy

W. C. Tuttle

Set in the heat around the Paradise depot, the story follows three cowboys waiting to receive a long-delayed cook stove for the Cross-J outfit. While they swap jokes and banter about singing, poetry, and train whistles, their wait is interrupted by the arrival of three women who seem to be looking for someone there.

E-Book · Free to read · English

How to become mentally superior

Henri Le Chatelier

This book argues that a country’s progress depends on forming an intellectual elite, and it contrasts several levels of intellectual attainment from great geniuses to lesser but still useful leaders. It presents ambition, sustained work, careful preparation, and concentration on a limited field as the main conditions for rising above the average. Examples from science, literature, politics, and industry are used to illustrate these traits.

E-Book · Free to read · English

The Hotel

Elizabeth Bowen

Elizabeth Bowen’s novel is set in a Riviera hotel where the routines of guests, servants, and visitors are watched with intense sensitivity. Miss Fitzgerald’s abrupt departure into the road and Miss Pym’s anxious movements through the lounge and staircase reveal a charged social atmosphere shaped by unease, observation, and private feeling. The arrival and movement of other women, including Mrs. Kerr, add to the novel’s focus on shifting relations and the uneasy connections formed in hotel life.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Founding fathers

Robert Bloch

Robert Bloch’s science-fiction story sends Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, and Charles Thomson into Independence Hall on the morning of July 4, 1776. The men speak in gangster slang while Franklin tries to keep their operation on track, with time-travel details and modern intrusions complicating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The setup centers on a comic attempt to revise the document before the rest of Congress arrives.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Wheels

Michael Zuroy

This science-fiction story centers on Alph Agar, director of a Fly-Wheel manufacturing unit, who is suddenly forced to face a contest connected to visiting aliens. His assistant, Ker Kermit, enters both their names, while Agar is privately worried because he cannot operate a Fly-Wheel and fears the consequences if the matter is exposed. The story also develops Agar’s awkward attraction to his secretary, Jean-Jean, alongside the tension between executive status, rivalry, and the technical demands of his world.

E-Book · Free to read · English

The wolves and the lamb

J. S. Fletcher

Set in London, this detective novel opens in the offices of Leverton & Carsdale, where John Carsdale reacts to a letter about a twenty-one-year-old who wants Barclay Leverton to handle a fortune of three hundred thousand pounds. As Carsdale weighs the chance for profit, he summons Mrs. Walsingham, a polished and enigmatic woman connected with the firm, and shows her the letter. The opening establishes an atmosphere of business intrigue, money, and suspicion around an inexperienced heir.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Spring fire

Vin Packer

Susan Mitchell arrives at Cranston University as late-summer campus life and rush week begin, watching the sorority and fraternity world of Greek Town and the students moving into place. The novel centers on her hopes and unease as she prepares to be judged by sororities, shaped by her father’s expectations and by the college social world around her. It also follows her inner conflict over Leda and the fact that they are both lesbian, which leaves Mitch torn between love and rejection.

E-Book · Free to read · English

The heart of an orphan

Amanda Mathews Chase

This epistolary fiction follows Giovanna, an orphan living in a Christian asylum for girls, where the children are divided into “holes” and “halfs.” In her letters she describes school, chores, prayers, the matron, and the hard routine of institutional life. She also writes to the mother she longs for, remembering earlier affection, family losses, and the separation from her sister Isabella after she was taken by a kind woman.

E-Book · Free to read · English

The enterprising burglar

Hearnden Balfour

On a bitter November night in London, Spike Moseley, a crook, makes his way to Scotland Yard, determined to tell Detective-Inspector Strickland what he knows about a gang and a man connected with it. Before he can give the name, he collapses and dies, leaving Strickland with only a fragment of the warning and a strong sense that an important case has been cut short. The scene then shifts to Strickland’s efforts to secure help and continue the inquiry on Westminster Bridge.

E-Book · Free to read · English

The manliness of Christ

Thomas Hughes

Thomas Hughes reflects on the purpose of revising The Manliness of Christ after years of work with the Working Men’s College and Rugby school addresses. He frames the enlarged edition for younger readers and students, while also noting a theological disagreement about whether Christ retained omniscience in the flesh. The opening chapter also connects the book’s theme of Christian manliness to efforts to reach young men through organized religious and social work.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Wings of youth

Nancy Buckley

Wings of Youth is Nancy Buckley’s second published collection of verse, issued in 1922 and rooted in American poetry of the early 20th century. The book is described as moving between wistful, tender, and joyful tones, with a mellower feeling than her earlier collection and signs of broader poetic growth. It also notes that some poems first appeared in magazines before being gathered here.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Double jeopardy

Martin M. Goldsmith

A New York State murder case frames this novel of double jeopardy and the strain it places on an ordinary man. Peter Thatcher, a young Ithaca druggist and World War I veteran, is held responsible for his wife’s death while the account suggests he may not even be sure of his own innocence. The story is presented as his own confession, moving between wartime trauma, his life as an apothecary, and the circumstances that lead to his arrest and trial.

E-Book · Free to read · English

The Red Gods

Jean d' Esme

The novel is set in French Indo-China, with Saigon and the forests around the Annamite range as its main backdrop. Its opening moves from a French report about a little-seen people in the mountains to a cast including a young colonial official, a priest, a lieutenant, a steamboat captain, and a narrator tied to opium use in Cho-lon. From there it enters the opium den atmosphere of the Chinese quarter, where the narrator is drawn into a night of smoke, memory, and unease before the larger story of the forgotten mountain tribes unfolds.

E-Book · Free to read · English

Oldham

Lucy Ellen Guernsey

Oldham is set in a quiet New England parish and centers on a rural schoolroom where Miss Armstrong teaches a small class of children, including the troubled Kit Mallory. The opening presents the community’s plain country life, its old-fashioned school, and a religious exercise that brings Kit’s family beliefs into conflict with the prayers expected at school.

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