SPOZZ Books
911 books
E-Book · Free to read · English
Sherwood Anderson’s Tar is a memoir-like account of his attempt to write about his own childhood while questioning the truthfulness of self-narration. He reflects on growing up in a Midwestern American town, on family members who might object to being portrayed, and on how imagination reshapes ordinary childhood incidents into stories.
E-Book · Free to read · English
This story follows Cynthia Bates during a springtime walk and conversation with Richard, a man who has been keeping her company through the season. Their talk turns to marriage, freedom, and the difference between Richard’s life and Cynthia’s more guarded one, while his touch and easy confidence unsettle her. The walk is shadowed by his announcement that he must leave soon, forcing Cynthia to confront what his presence has come to mean to her.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Set in England, this domestic novel follows Miss Hannah Mole, a middle-aged woman who works as a companion and other household help without a home of her own. It presents her among employers in Radstowe, including Mrs. Widdows and Mrs. Gibson, as she reflects on the tensions, deceptions, and small freedoms of her daily life while moving through the streets of the town.
E-Book · Free to read · English
In Pineville on a quiet Sunday morning, Sheriff Pat Lynch and deputy Oscar Johnson deal with the aftermath of a wrecked buggy after a rough night out. While examining the damage behind the Stormy River Saloon, they notice a man lying by a corral and discover that Buck Dennig has been killed. The story begins as the two men shift from a private mishap to a sudden death in town.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Cynthia Bates, a young woman at a university summer setting, moves between tennis, her work, and an increasingly charged connection with Mr. Preston, a gray-haired man who seems to expect more from her than she intends to give. Around her, conversations with Mona turn to marriage, desire, and the different futures available to women, while Cynthia insists she wants to stay and work. The story follows her growing uncertainty as she weighs the man, her ambitions, and the social pressure to choose.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Cynthia, a teenage girl, chafes against her mother’s rules as she tries to visit Mrs. Moore, a newcomer in town whom her mother distrusts. On the way, she slips away into the woods, where she is absorbed by spring growth and finds wild flowers, especially a hepatica she carefully digs up. The journey to Mrs. Moore’s house becomes for Cynthia a private struggle between childhood restraint and a new sense of self.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Set along the Mexican border during the period after Pancho Villa’s raid on Columbus, the story follows a U.S. Army regiment posted near Tia Juana on routine patrol duty. The narrator, an experienced corporal, watches younger soldiers turn the assignment into a romance, especially Dale Hawkins, who becomes captivated by a local shopgirl. The corporal’s own attention shifts when he meets the woman and tries to judge what kind of person she is.
E-Book · Free to read · English
In Piperock and Yaller Rock County, Ike Harper and Dirty Shirt Jones encounter a proclamation and a local push to make the county dry. As they travel toward town, they meet residents and a preacherly reformer who denounces liquor and talks of closing the grog-shops, while another man complains about his right to drink and carry home enough alcohol for his needs. The story centers on the brewing temperance campaign and the townspeople’s reactions to it.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Ike Harper and Magpie Simpkins share a cabin on Plenty Stone Creek, where Magpie’s impulse to gamble leads him into a wager with Tellurium Woods. After reading about a man who lived naked in the wilderness for thirty days, Magpie bets he can do the same, and the men draw up a written agreement while Ike is left holding the stake. Magpie then heads into the Medicine Hills to begin the challenge, and the story soon brings Professor Phinney, his wife, and Doctor Doolittle to the cabin.
E-Book · Free to read · English
At the Cross J ranch, the narrator Hen Peck describes a small crew of punchers led by old man Whittaker, along with their habits, songs, and grievances. The story centers on the ranch cook, first a Chinese man replaced after a mishap and then Harelip Hansen, whose terrible cooking draws complaints from the men and even from the pet magpie Cyclops. The magpie’s backstory and the ranch hands’ talk establish a comic western setting full of rough speech, music, and eccentric characters.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Helen R. Hull’s book is a set of four short stories centered on a coastal town in southern New England and the changes brought by a late-September hurricane. One story focuses on Margaret Turner, a mathematics teacher who has bought an old family-linked house near the shore and lets visitors believe her connection to the land is more ancestral and enduring than it is. The setting includes the Lathrop property, the town’s roads, docks, and bay, and the contrast between old local history and newer summer development.
E-Book · Free to read · English
This Western story centers on Chuck Warner, a self-described liar who works with cowboys for Jay Bird Whittaker on the Cross J outfit. After Jay Bird leaves, Chuck meets Mighty Jones in Paradise and learns that Mighty has inflated his life in letters to his sister, who is now coming to visit with her family. The tale also brings in Magpie Simpkins and the other punchers, with Chuck preparing to pass along news in his own unreliable way.
E-Book · Free to read · English
This Western tale is set in the dry town of Piperock, where Magpie Simpkins urges Ike Harper to join a Thanksgiving celebration. Ike is skeptical, expecting trouble from Piperock entertainments, but learns the event is being planned as a proper program with songs, recitations, and a possible masquerade. The story also shows the town’s unusual temperance era, with Buck Masterson serving soft drinks instead of liquor and the men gathering over raspberry juice and ice cream.
E-Book · Free to read · English
This book is a pilgrim diary of a Catholic journey across the Atlantic and through parts of Canada and Europe, combining travel notes with devotional observances. It follows a mixed group of priests and lay pilgrims as they depart Montreal, travel down the St. Lawrence, and hold Masses, hymns, and prayers aboard ship. The record also sketches the scenery and church life of places visited, including Montreal and Quebec, with attention to cathedrals, convents, and French Canadian religious practice.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Set in rural Michigan, the novel centers on a large farm beside a marshy belt and on Major Ratke, a Mexican War veteran who is proud of his originality as an inventor and philosopher. As mortgage trouble and unreliable hired men weigh on the estate, he and his sister Mrs. Grippin manage the work and argue over labor, calculations, and improvements to the property. The opening also introduces Break o'Day as the nearby village visited by the men who leave the farm.
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