SPOZZ Books

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · English

Stories of gypsy life

Konrad Bercovici

This collection presents short fiction centered on Romani life and customs. One story focuses on Dimitru’s old mill on the Bistritza River in Moldavia, a place that serves as the village’s economic and social center, where grinding grain, sawmill work, oil pressing, and local gatherings all take place. The narrative also draws on village legends and family memory, including stories of the mill’s supposed refusal to grind stolen grain. It introduces Dimitru, his son George, and the role of the mill across generations.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · English

Partners in crime

Agatha Christie

The book follows Tommy and Tuppence Beresford several years into their marriage, living comfortably in a London flat with money, routine, and little excitement. Tuppence grows restless and longs for adventure, while Tommy teases her about her craving for danger and romance, recalling their earlier espionage days. Their conversation sets up a domestic detective story centered on their desire for something more than ordinary life.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · English

Only a girl-wife

Ruth Lamb

The story is set at Steynes-Cote, the home of Dr. Fereday and his wife Grace in Shelverton, where he serves a wide district as a physician and she is beloved for her kindness to local poor people and children. Their marriage is portrayed as affectionate but uneven in daily habit, with Grace often yielding to her husband's long, distracted breakfasts and his tendency to treat her attention as always available. The account also notes that the couple are childless and that Grace soon comes to have an adopted son.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · English

Germantown old and new

Edwin C. Jellett

This book is a locally focused sketch of Germantown’s notable plants, gardens, mansions, and historic places, prepared for the Germantown Horticultural Society and later issued in print. It presents the town as a place where old houses, cultivated grounds, and the people who maintain them reflect its growth in culture and character, while also identifying specific sites, botanists, and horticulturists of interest.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · English

The crime code

William Le Queux

Lionel Hipwell, a young London man of good family and political prospects, tells how gambling and a chance night out draw him from an ordinary life into danger. Secretly engaged to Joan Gell, the daughter of his father’s political enemy, he moves between society circles, the Foreign Office, and gaming tables as the night of November 12 begins to shift his fate.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · Deutsch

Empfindungen aus meinem Leben

Amand Berghofer

Der Band versammelt lyrische Texte, in denen ein Sprecher die Stellung der Dichtkunst gegenüber Vorurteil, Verstand und Gefühl verteidigt. Wiederholt wird Poesie als Ausdruck von Würde, Begeisterung, Harmonie und moralischer Veredelung dargestellt, im Gegensatz zu bloßem Zeitvertreib oder sinnlicher Zerstreuung. Zugleich zeigt sich eine persönliche, empfindsame Haltung, die sich von Lieblosigkeit und städtischem Druck abwendet und in der Natur Ruhe und Trost sucht.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · English

A secret agent in Port Arthur

Wirt Gerrare

A first-person account of the Russo-Japanese War follows a newspaper man sent incognito through Russia, Siberia, Manchuria, and toward Peking to gather information for his paper. The book describes his experiences in Port Arthur and elsewhere in Manchuria and the Far East, along with the uneasy overlap between secret agents, spies, and correspondents during the siege of Port Arthur. It also reflects on censorship, military secrecy, and the role of foreign journalism in the conflict.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · English

Rustlers' roost

W. C. Tuttle

Tex Rowland, a cowpuncher serving time as prisoner 1733, is quietly warned by Hump Sherrill, an older trusty from the same cattle country. The story centers on prison suspicion and a possible setup after an attempted escape leaves the prison unsettled, while Tex is summoned to face hard-nosed warden Jim McHague and seems to be in danger himself. The opening builds a tense mystery around why Tex is being blamed and what Hump’s message is meant to prevent.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · English

The taming of Nan

Ethel Carnie Holdsworth

Set in industrial Lancashire, this novel opens in Narrowfields among working-class households waking before dawn, with the Cherry family at the center. Nan Cherry is introduced as a fierce, outspoken woman whose anger dominates the street and household, while the home itself is crowded, worn, and marked by strain. The passage also suggests a family shaped by labor, dogs, and rough domestic tension, with a mixture of harshness and dark humor.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · English

The surprise party

Erle Stanley Gardner

The story follows the High Collar Kid, a seasoned underworld operator with sharp instincts, as he drives through a rain-soaked city and senses he may be under observation. When he spots a lone young woman walking along the highway, he slows and then pulls off onto a side road, waiting with his automatic ready to see whether the situation is a trap or a chance encounter. The tense setup centers on his caution, pursuit, and uncertainty in the storm.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · English

The man from Oregon

Mary B. Arbuckle

Kendall, a weary schoolmaster recovering from illness, boards at a Southwest ranch run by Mrs. Brownlie and her children. Expecting the color of Western romance, he instead sees hard, repetitive labor, meager comforts, and a household worn down by poverty and neglect. He notices especially the strained mother, the overworked boys, and Lily, a delicately dressed child kept away from chores.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · English

The old "yaller" shirt

Ray Humphreys

This Western short story follows Thad Sowers, a broncho buster with the John O’Day Traveling Rodeo Circus, who keeps wearing an old yellow silk shirt despite his boss’s complaints. John O’Day wants him to replace it before the afternoon performance in Colorado, but Thad’s attachment to the shirt is tied up with his feelings about June O’Day, the owner’s daughter. The story centers on the tension between Thad, his employer, and the rodeo setting as the show prepares to go on.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · English

On the dodge

Will James

A drifting cowboy at the Arrow Springs cow-camp loses his buckskin horse after hearing shots in the night and follows the tracks of the thief. His search leads him into the hands of a sheriff’s party that mistakes him for a wanted man connected to a bank robbery and murder, relying on his appearance, his horse, and the trail against him. The story follows his arrest and uneasy escort toward town as he tries to explain where he was and why he is on the trail.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · Deutsch

Kaspar Krumbholtz

Herman Anders Krüger

Der Roman setzt an einem Samstagabend in der Tramberger Knabenanstalt ein, wo sich die Lehrerschaft zum gewohnten Teeabend im Konferenzzimmer versammelt. In lockerer, oft spöttischer Unterhaltung treten die verschiedenen Lehrer mit ihren Eigenarten hervor, besonders der gestrenge Schlegelmeyer sowie die Kollegen Kratt, Knortz und Muffke. Der Ausschnitt zeigt vor allem den Kameradschaftston, die Rangordnung und den Alltag dieser Internatswelt unmittelbar vor dem Ende der Osterferien.

E-Book · Czytaj bezpłatnie · Deutsch

Wenn ich die Sonne grüße ...

Elisabeth v. Maltzahn