LitReading - Classic Short Stories and Timeless Tales

Short StoryVerses
Short StoryVerses
  • 4.8 (317)
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Great stories deserve to be heard. Every week, LitReading brings you a complete classic or original short story, carefully chosen and beautifully narrated by Don McDonald. Discover unforgettable tales by Poe, Twain, O. Henry, Wharton, and other celebrated writers—along with overlooked gems waiting to be heard again. Episodes range from a few captivating minutes to a deeply immersive hour. With warmth, clarity, and just enough character to bring each tale to life, LitReading turns every drive, walk, quiet evening, or sleepless night into time well spent. Come for a story. Leave with a world. 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. All episodes are narrated by professional voice actor, Don McDonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 6h ago

    A Wasted Day — A Classic Short Story by Richard Harding Davis

    Arnold Thorndike buys a Correggio before breakfast and can price his own time to the minute. Two hundred dollars of it. So when he stops his car at the Court of General Sessions to say a word for a young stenographer who got drunk, lost five hundred dollars of his employer's money, and is due up for sentence, he figures the errand will run him about a thousand. The court has other ideas. Richard Harding Davis, the most famous reporter of his generation, sets the Wisest Man in Wall Street down on a hard oak chair and leaves him there, unrecognized and unimportant, admitted only because he's "with Mr. Andrews," while the whole sorry parade of the city files past the bench. This is a comedy of manners with a soft heart. If you enjoy well-narrated short stories, check out our many story-telling podcasts at shortstoryverses.com We are so honored to have been featured by Apple Podcasts as a great source for summer stories. If you don't want to miss our future stories, please Follow or Subscribe. Also, we have over 100 stories in our back catalog. Enough stories to keep you entertained for weeks. Looking for even more stories? Check out all out narrative podcasts at shortstoryverses.com If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    A Wasted Day — A Classic Short Story by Richard Harding Davis

  2. Aug 11

    The Huntsman — A Classic Short Story by Anton Chekhov

    High summer, and it is too hot to sing. A huntsman walks a road with a gun on his shoulder, a bird in his bag, and a dog running ahead of him. A woman steps out of the rye with a sickle in her hand and says his name. She is delighted to see him. He is not. They sit down between two fir trees, and in the ten minutes that follow, Anton Chekhov does something very quiet and very cruel. He was twenty-five, writing fast and for money under a pen name, and he claimed later that he wrote this one in a bathhouse in a single sitting We are so honored to have been featured by Apple Podcasts as a great source for summer stories. If you don't want to miss our future stories, please Follow or Subscribe. Also, we have over 100 stories in our back catalog. Enough stories to keep you entertained for weeks. Looking for even more stories? Check out all out narrative podcasts at shortstoryverses.com If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Huntsman — A Classic Short Story by Anton Chekhov

  3. Aug 4

    Chain of Custody — An Original Tale by Don McDonald

    This story is the first story specifically written for HumorUs Stories, a funny story podcast from ShortStoryverses.com. In Maple Glen, nothing ever happens. This week, nothing happens in three separate backyards, after dark, and everyone involved would prefer you didn't ask. A deadpan comedy about honesty, neighbors, and one very patient dog. Find more stories at ShortStoryverses.com — a multiverse of audio fiction spanning seven shows: classics on LitReading, original voices on New Tales Told, children's stories on Readastorus, holiday tales on Season's Readings, horror on FRIGHTLY!, romance on Love Lit, and comedy on HumorUs. Every story sized to fit a commute, a walk, or the quiet stretch before sleep. We have stories buried everywhere. We are so honored to have been featured by Apple Podcasts as a great source for summer stories. If you don't want to miss our future stories, please Follow or Subscribe. Also, we have over 100 stories in our back catalog. Enough stories to keep you entertained for weeks. Looking for even more stories? Check out all out narrative podcasts at shortstoryverses.com If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Chain of Custody — An Original Tale by Don McDonald

  4. Jul 28

    The Long Light — An Original Short Story by Don McDonald

    Nora has come up to Lake Sabbath to do one hard, practical thing — close the old family house for good, and mark what will be sold. She means to stay a single night. But a house keeps its own memory: the key still on its nail, the drawer that sticks, a boat with a name. And a long, unhurried summer evening on still water can ask more of a person than they came prepared to answer. Short Storyverses is our multiverse of audio fiction — where each show spins in its own orbit but shares one sky. Classics and originals on LitReading, suspense on FRIGHTLY!, romance on Love Lit, comedy on HumorUs, new voices on New Tales Told, and tales for the youngest listeners too. Short enough for a commute, a walk, or the quiet before sleep. Press play at shortstoryverses.com. We are so honored to have been featured by Apple Podcasts as a great source for summer stories. If you don't want to miss our future stories, please Follow or Subscribe. Also, we have over 100 stories in our back catalog. Enough stories to keep you entertained for weeks. Looking for even more stories? Check out all out narrative podcasts at shortstoryverses.com If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Long Light — An Original Short Story by Don McDonald

  5. Jul 21

    The Nice People — A Classic Short Story by H.C. Brunner

    Atop Orange Mountain, in Mr. Jacobus's summer boarding house, a bored married couple finds relief from their tiresome fellow guests in the arrival of the Bredes — a graceful, good-looking young pair who seem, in every visible way, to be "nice people." But their charming small talk keeps springing leaks. Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855–1896) was a poet, novelist, and the longtime editor of the humor magazine *Puck*, celebrated for polished short stories that find real feeling inside social comedy. "The Nice People" is one of his warmest — a story about gossip, appearances, and the whole hidden other side of people that we never see from the heights of our own self-esteem.  We are so honored to have been featured by Apple Podcasts as a great source for summer stories. If you don't want to miss our future stories, please Follow or Subscribe. Also, we have over 100 stories in our back catalog. Enough stories to keep you entertained for weeks. Looking for even more stories? Check out all out narrative podcasts at shortstoryverses.com If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Nice People — A Classic Short Story by H.C. Brunner

  6. Jul 14

    The Wizard's Touch — A Classic Short Story by Alice Brown

    The critics call Jerome Wilmer a wizard. They say he doesn't paint faces — he paints hopes, fears, and longings, and that no secret survives sitting for one of his portraits. Home from Paris for his annual New England summer, Wilmer has spent ten years asking Mary Brinsley the same question and getting the same gentle answer. This year, he sets up a canvas in the barn and asks her fiancé to sit instead. Alice Brown's "The Wizard's Touch" (1906) is a quiet story about love, rivalry, and what a portrait really shows — the person you are, or the person you might become. Carefully selected and beautifully narrated by Don McDonald, LitReading brings classic literature back to life — read out loud the way it was meant to be heard. New stories every week. About the author: Alice Brown (1857–1948) was born on a farm in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, and became one of New England's most admired writers of her era. After moving to Boston in 1884, she produced nearly a book a year for five decades — novels, plays, poetry, and the "local color" stories of New England village life that made her reputation, including the collections Meadow-Grass (1896) and The Country Road (1906). "The Wizard's Touch" was published in 1906, at the height of her career. Enjoyed today's story? Follow or subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode, and if you have a moment, a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps other listeners discover the show. Explore our complete catalog of classic short stories and original tales at shortstoryverses.com. LitReading is written, produced, and narrated by Don McDonald. "The Wizard's Touch" by Alice Brown is in the public domain. We are so honored to have been featured by Apple Podcasts as a great source for summer stories. If you don't want to miss our future stories, please Follow or Subscribe. Also, we have over 100 stories in our back catalog. Enough stories to keep you entertained for weeks. Looking for even more stories? Check out all out narrative podcasts at shortstoryverses.com If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Wizard's Touch — A Classic Short Story by Alice Brown

  7. Jul 9

    The Storm — A Classic Short Story by Kate Chopin

    Here is a special bonus episode for your summer listening pleasure. A sweltering summer afternoon on the Louisiana coast, a storm racing in off the Gulf, and a woman alone in her house when an old flame rides up the path for shelter. Kate Chopin wrote "The Storm" in 1898 and then did something telling with it, she put it in a drawer, because she knew no editor of her day would print a story that rendered a woman's desire so frankly and then refused to punish anyone for it. It stayed unseen until 1969, more than sixty years after her death. Today it stands as one of the boldest short stories in American literature, a small, perfect thing about passion, nature, and the space between what we owe and what we want. Kate Chopin (1850–1904) was born in St. Louis and married into Louisiana Creole society, and after her husband's death she turned to writing, drawing on the Cajun and Creole world she had lived among. Her 1899 novel, "The Awakening," was so unflinching about a woman's inner and sexual life that the backlash all but ended her career in her lifetime. Vindication came slowly and completely, and she is now regarded as a foundational voice in American fiction and an early, fearless chronicler of women's desire and independence. We are so honored to have been featured by Apple Podcasts as a great source for summer stories. If you don't want to miss our future stories, please Follow or Subscribe. Also, we have over 100 stories in our back catalog. Enough stories to keep you entertained for weeks. Looking for even more stories? Check out all out narrative podcasts at shortstoryverses.com If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Storm — A Classic Short Story by Kate Chopin

  8. Jul 6

    The Garden Party — A Classic Short Story by Katherine Mansfield

    A perfect summer morning, a lawn being readied for the most delightful garden party of the season, and a death just down the hill that no one quite knows what to do with. Katherine Mansfield’s 1922 masterpiece follows young Laura Sheridan as the giddy pleasures of her family’s wealth, a hat, a band, trays of lilies, run headlong into the reality of a working man killed in the lane below. Tender, ironic, and quietly devastating, “The Garden Party” is one of the great short stories of the twentieth century, and it ends on a sentence Laura cannot finish. “The Garden Party” was written by Katherine Mansfield and first published in 1922. If this reading stayed with you, please share Litreading with a fellow lover of fine stories and leave a five-star rating or review, it’s the simplest way to help the work reach new listeners. Discover our multiverse of short stories at shortstoryverses.com. Thanks for listening. We are so honored to have been featured by Apple Podcasts as a great source for summer stories. If you don't want to miss our future stories, please Follow or Subscribe. Also, we have over 100 stories in our back catalog. Enough stories to keep you entertained for weeks. Looking for even more stories? Check out all out narrative podcasts at shortstoryverses.com If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Garden Party — A Classic Short Story by Katherine Mansfield
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Great stories deserve to be heard. Every week, LitReading brings you a complete classic or original short story, carefully chosen and beautifully narrated by Don McDonald. Discover unforgettable tales by Poe, Twain, O. Henry, Wharton, and other celebrated writers—along with overlooked gems waiting to be heard again. Episodes range from a few captivating minutes to a deeply immersive hour. With warmth, clarity, and just enough character to bring each tale to life, LitReading turns every drive, walk, quiet evening, or sleepless night into time well spent. Come for a story. Leave with a world. 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. All episodes are narrated by professional voice actor, Don McDonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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