LitReading - Original Short Stories and Classic Tales

Short StoryVerses
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Litreading Summer Stories Starting on the first Tuesday of summer, June 23rd, Litreading presents classic stories of summer every week. Don has picked out several classic seasonal tales starting with Chekov's "A Day in the Country" and is bringing back a couple of old favorite summer memories to keep you company on your travels or adventures. A summer story episode will be available every Tuesday, so check back regularly. Also, be sure to explore our entire catalog of classic tales, well read. Litreading delivers classic and original short stories—carefully selected, beautifully narrated, and updated every week. From Poe to Twain, O. Henry to Wharton, each episode presents a complete tale in a clean, immersive performance lasting anywhere from a few minutes to an hour. These timeless stories are read with clarity, warmth, and just enough character to bring them fully to life. Litreading is part of Short Storyverses (shortstoryverses.com), a growing collection of podcasts devoted to exceptional storytelling. Explore New Tales Told—our companion series of original stories inspired by the tone and spirit of the classics; Season’s Readings to brighten your holidays any time of year; FRIGHTLY! for tales of terror; and Readastorus for for younger listeners. Search for all of these titles wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. A Day in the Country – A Classic Tale by Anton Chekov

    3d ago

    A Day in the Country – A Classic Tale by Anton Chekov

    Welcome to our first special summer story of 2026. A May storm rolls over a Russian village, and a small beggar-girl runs through it looking for Terenty the cobbler. Her brother has jammed his hand in a hollow tree, reaching after a cuckoo's egg. What begins as a rescue becomes a long, wandering walk through fields washed clean by rain, a barefoot old man naming every living thing for a boy who cannot hear enough of it. There's no real plot here, and that's the point. Chekhov gives us weather, wonder, and the quiet ache of a child who has no home to walk back to. The last image, offered to no one but the moon, may stay with you longer than the storm. Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) was a Russian short-story writer and playwright, and a working doctor besides. He wrote hundreds of stories that changed what the form could do, trading tidy plots and clear morals for mood, restraint, and the quiet weight of ordinary life. "Medicine is my lawful wife," he once said, "and literature is my mistress." He died of tuberculosis at forty-four, having reshaped both the short story and the modern stage. If you enjoyed this story, check out all of our short story podcasts on the Short Storyvesrse channel on Apple Podcasts or at shortstoryverses.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    18 min
  2. A Rose for Emily — A Classic Short Story by William Faulkner

    Jun 16

    A Rose for Emily — A Classic Short Story by William Faulkner

    A woman alone in a decaying house. A town that watches her for fifty years, pitying, judging, whispering, and never once truly seeing her. And one room upstairs that no one has opened in forty years. Faulkner published it in 1930 and it just entered the public domain. This is a story that loses none of its grip on the second telling, or the tenth.  And you may have caught it: there's no rose anywhere in the story. Faulkner said the title was a salute, a flower handed to a woman whose tragedy could never be undone. The town watched her for fifty years and gave her nothing. The rose is Faulkner's, laid down after she's gone, the way roses usually are. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    25 min
  3. Dark — An Original Short Story by Don McDonald

    Jun 9

    Dark — An Original Short Story by Don McDonald

    An original story, written and read by me, Don McDonald. This one began with something I read and couldn't shake. The universe is expanding, and it won't stop, and the stars are spending the only fuel there is. The brightest burn out first. The small, dim, patient ones hold on the longest, for trillions of years, until at last the final star flickers out and the dark that follows has no end and no dawn. I found I couldn't stop thinking about that last light, and about who might be there to watch it die. Less the physics of the thing than the ache underneath it, one witness at the end of everything, keeping a watch that has finally run out of anything to keep. That became Dark. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    26 min
  4. Miss Brill — A Classic Short Story by Katherine Mansfield

    Jun 2

    Miss Brill — A Classic Short Story by Katherine Mansfield

    On a bright Sunday afternoon in a French public garden, a lonely English teacher lifts her treasured fox fur from its box, settles onto her usual bench, and quietly borrows the lives going on around her. Katherine Mansfield's "Miss Brill," first published in 1920, is a small marvel, barely two thousand words that somehow hold an entire life up to the light. The band plays, the season has begun, the crowd parades, and Miss Brill, watching, decides she too has a part in the great Sunday performance. It is warm and observant and quietly shattering, modernist storytelling at its most humane, and it ends on a single image you won't soon shake. Read by Don McDonald. Katherine Mansfield was born in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1888, and spent most of her short adult life in England and on the Continent, restless, often ill, and always writing. She is remembered now as one of the great modernists of the short story, a writer who could fit an entire life inside a few pages and turn it slowly in the light. Virginia Woolf, not a generous judge of her contemporaries, once confessed that Mansfield's was the only writing she had ever been jealous of. Mansfield died in France in 1923, of tuberculosis, just thirty-four years old, with most of her finest work behind her and, you can't help feeling, a great deal more still ahead. Litreading is part of Short Storyverses (shortstoryverses.com), a multiverse of audio fiction devoted to exceptional storytelling, classics and originals alike. Explore Readastorus for timeless tales for the youngest listeners, Season's Readings to brighten your holidays any time of year, Love Lit for the romantics and the hopelessly devoted, and FRIGHTLY! for tales that keep the lights low and the floorboards creaking. Search for all of them wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoy historical fiction, be sure to check out Don's first novel, The Line Uncrossed available at Amazon.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    15 min
  5. Man or Monster — An Original Civil War Short Story by Don McDonald

    May 26

    Man or Monster — An Original Civil War Short Story by Don McDonald

    In August 1864, thirty thousand Union prisoners were dying behind a wall of felled pine in southern Georgia. The man in command was a Swiss-born captain with a ruined arm, a sick wife back home, and a daughter whose portrait he kept on his writing table. His name was Henry Wirz, and a year later he would be the only man executed for war crimes after the Civil War. "Man or Monster" follows him through a single day. The morning report. The short rations. The chain. The deadline. The letters to a Richmond that never wrote back. No verdict, no villain's speech, just one man doing his duty inside a horror he could name but could not stop, and the question the title leaves with you. From the world of Don McDonald's novel The Line Uncrossed. The book is available at Amazon.com, BN.com, and others booksellers or you can get a special ebook bundle that includes this and two other Civil War stories at donmcdonald.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    22 min
  6. Chickmauga — A Classic Short Story by Ambrose Bierce

    May 19

    Chickmauga — A Classic Short Story by Ambrose Bierce

    Ambrose Bierce fought as a Union officer at the battle of Chickamauga in September of 1863. Twenty-six years later, he wrote this story about it. A warning before you press play. "Chickamauga" is brief and graphic. Bierce describes wounded and dying men in unflinching detail, and there is a small child at the center of the story. If you've served, if you've lost someone to war, or if you're listening with children present, take a moment before you begin. This is not the Civil War of monuments and ceremony. It is the war as Bierce saw it, written by a man who refused to let his country forget. A note on the language: Bierce wrote for readers of 1889, and his vocabulary, sentence length, and classical allusions reflect that. He expected his audience to do some work. The difficulty is part of the experience. The battle in the title was a real battle. More than 34,000 men were killed, wounded, or captured over three days in north Georgia. One of them, captured on September 20th, 1863, was John B. Anderson of the 6th Indiana Volunteer Infantry — my great-great-grandfather. He survived Libby Prison, Danville, and Andersonville, and walked home on the last day of 1864. His story inspired The Line Uncrossed, a novel following a young soldier named Levi Anderson from enlistment through capture, captivity, and homecoming. It's available May 22nd, 2026, wherever books are sold. You can also immediately purchase a special ebook package with The Line Uncrossed and a three story bonus ebook with this story and two original stories from the world of The Line Uncrossed for only $5 at donmcdonald.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    19 min
  7. The Pen — An Original Civil War Story by Don McDonald

    May 12

    The Pen — An Original Civil War Story by Don McDonald

    Henry Pollard has always had a dangerous relationship with words. In 1861 Indianapolis, while the country rushes headlong toward war, Henry would prefer to remain where he is: alive, sarcastic, and safely distant from glory. But a simple errand on behalf of a worried mother places him at a recruiting table outside the statehouse, where one ordinary moment begins quietly rearranging the rest of his life. The Pen is an original short story set in the world of The Line Uncrossed, a literary Civil War novel about family, memory, survival, and the irreversible weight of seemingly small decisions. Told with wit, warmth, and the hindsight of years, it offers a deeply human glimpse into the young men who marched toward war before they understood what war truly was. The Line Uncrossed, available May 22, 2026 at Amazon.com, BN.com, and a host of other book and e-book services. Podcast listeners can get an early access to The Line Uncrossed e-book offer with bonus stories, including this one, at donmcdonald.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    25 min
  8. The Five Boons of Life — A Classic Short Fable by Mark Twain

    May 5

    The Five Boons of Life — A Classic Short Fable by Mark Twain

    A man is offered five gifts by a fairy, and told that only one of them holds any real value. He is asked to choose. What follows is one of Mark Twain's bleakest parables, written in the shadow of personal loss, and rendered with the dark precision of a writer who had stopped pretending that wisdom arrives in time to be useful. The Five Boons of Life was published in 1902, when Mark Twain was sixty-six years old, and it belongs to a period of his work that bears little resemblance to the river-bright comedy of Tom Sawyer or the rolling satire of Huckleberry Finn. By the time he wrote this fable, the man born Samuel Clemens had buried his beloved daughter Susy, who died of meningitis in 1896 while he was abroad, unable to reach her. His wife Olivia, the center of his emotional life for more than three decades, was in failing health and would die two years after this story was written. His youngest daughter Jean, who suffered from epilepsy, would drown in a bathtub on Christmas Eve of 1909, four months before Twain himself died. He outlived nearly everyone he had built his life around. He had also outlived his own fortune. A series of disastrous investments, most notoriously in the Paige typesetting machine, had bankrupted him in the 1890s and forced him to undertake a global lecture tour, in his sixties, to pay back creditors he was not legally obligated to repay. He did it anyway, because his name was on the debt, and his name had once meant something to him. By 1902, fame had become, in his own assessment, a kind of haunting. Pleasure had thinned. Love had cost him more than he believed any human heart should be asked to pay. And wealth, he had learned twice over, was a borrowed thing that the world reclaimed without warning. What remained was the suspicion, hardened by experience into something like conviction, that the only mercy available to a human being was the one nobody wanted to ask for, and that even that mercy was distributed without justice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    11 min
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Litreading Summer Stories Starting on the first Tuesday of summer, June 23rd, Litreading presents classic stories of summer every week. Don has picked out several classic seasonal tales starting with Chekov's "A Day in the Country" and is bringing back a couple of old favorite summer memories to keep you company on your travels or adventures. A summer story episode will be available every Tuesday, so check back regularly. Also, be sure to explore our entire catalog of classic tales, well read. Litreading delivers classic and original short stories—carefully selected, beautifully narrated, and updated every week. From Poe to Twain, O. Henry to Wharton, each episode presents a complete tale in a clean, immersive performance lasting anywhere from a few minutes to an hour. These timeless stories are read with clarity, warmth, and just enough character to bring them fully to life. Litreading is part of Short Storyverses (shortstoryverses.com), a growing collection of podcasts devoted to exceptional storytelling. Explore New Tales Told—our companion series of original stories inspired by the tone and spirit of the classics; Season’s Readings to brighten your holidays any time of year; FRIGHTLY! for tales of terror; and Readastorus for for younger listeners. Search for all of these titles wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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