x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

LitReading - Classic Short Stories

Short Storyverses

Litreading delivers classic 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 ofShort Storyverses(shortstoryverses.com), a growing collection of podcasts devoted to exceptional

fiction performing arts

All Episodes

36:09

The Eternal Code — A Special Presentation of an...

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2026/01/07

This is a special presentation of my new original short story, "The Eternal Code," first released on my companion podcast, New Tales Told.Litreading will continue to feature classic short fiction, just as always. For listeners who enjoy original, contemporary stories, New Tales Told is where I share new work—standalone fiction meant to be experienced in audio. Just search for it on this podcast service or visit shortstoryverses.comNo one remembers the first human thought. But it remembers us.We tell

en

0:59

Litreading – Classic Short Stories Live On

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2026/01/01

Every story you've ever loved learned it from somewhere. The plot twist, the heartbreak, the monster in the dark—somebody wrote it first. Narrator Don McDonald brings classic literature back to life, read out loud the way it was meant to be heard. Dickens. Poe. Twain. Wharton. Doyle. Names you know. Stories you think you know—until you actually hear them. Some built entire genres. Some broke every rule. Some are just flat-out better than they have any right to be after a hundred years. No class. No

en

10:59

Uncle Richard’s New Year Dinner – A Classic Short...

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/12/30

Uncle Richard’s New Year Dinneris a tender, early-20th-century family story about estrangement, reconciliation, and the quiet power of kindness. Set over the course of a single winter evening, it explores how long-standing rifts are rarely healed by grand speeches—but sometimes by a warm stove, a shared table, and a willingness to begin again. It’s a story of kindness, humanity, and hope that arrives without ceremony.Lucy Maud Montgomery(1874–1942) was a Canadian author best known for her enduring

en

19:34

The Boy with the Box – A Classic Christmas Story by...

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/12/23

This holiday story will only be available for a limited time on Litreading, but will always be available on our holiday story podcast, Season's Readings.First published in 1905, “The Boy with the Box” is a gentle Christmas story about childhood pride, unexpected generosity, and the quiet ways kindness reshapes a heart. It captures a winter world of skates and shop windows, family love and small sacrifices—where the true gift arrives not in a box, but in understanding.Mary Griggs Van Voorhis

en

36:43

On Christmas Day in the Morning – A Classic Christmas...

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/12/16

This story is only available here during the holidays, but can be heard year-round at Season's Readings, a part of Short Storyverses at shortstoryverses.comOn Christmas Day in the Morningis a story about family—not as it is imagined, but as it is lived—and the gifts that arrive without wrapping. It was written with music already echoing between its lines. The traditional song of the same name appears directly in the story, assumed to be familiar to its original readers.For this performance, the

en

14:09

A Chaparral Christmas Gift – Classic Western...

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/12/09

This story is only available here during the holidays, but can be heard year-round at Season's Readings, a part of Short Storyverses at shortstoryverses.comOut on the western chaparral, Christmas doesn’t soften the land so much as sharpen what’s already waiting there—old grudges, old loves, and old wounds that never healed quite right. Madison Lane and Rosita McMullen have built a life together in the years since their wedding was interrupted by a jealous suitor… and a bullet. But Christmas Eve has

en

28:46

The Burglar's Christmas – A Classic Holiday Tale by...

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/12/02

This story is only available here during the holidays, but can be heard year-round at Season's Readings, a part of Short Storyverses at shortstoryverses.comThe Burglar’s Christmasis Willa Cather’s deeply human Christmas tale—published under the pseudonym Elizabeth L. Seymour—about a young man who has utterly failed in life and reached the end of his rope on a slushy Chicago Christmas Eve. Hungry, cold, and convinced he has squandered every opportunity he ever had, he turns to theft as a last act of

en

10:28

The Purple Dress – A Classic Holiday Story by O. Henry

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/11/25

This story is only available here during the holidays, but can be heard year-round at Season's Readings, a part of Short Storyverses at shortstoryverses.comO. Henry often found the heart of a story in the everyday moments most people overlook.The Purple Dressis one of those pieces — a small, vivid glimpse into life in early-1900s New York, told with his familiar mix of humor, warmth, and gentle surprise.William Sydney Porter, or O. Henry, wrote more than six hundred short stories marked by humor,

en

18:41

The Law of Life – a Classic Short Story by Jack London

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/11/18

Jack London takes us into the frozen silence of the Yukon and leaves us beside an aging chief who has reached the appointed end of his trail. As the tribe moves on, Old Koskoosh remains behind with only a small fire, a dwindling stack of wood, and the memories of a life spent obeying the relentless rhythms of nature. This is a stark, almost ceremonial meditation on aging, duty, and the brutal simplicity of the natural world.The Law of Lifeis one of London’s most quietly devastating works—not because

en

11:46

Hills Like White Elephants – A Classic Short Story by...

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/11/11

Ernest Hemingway’s“Hills Like White Elephants”is one of the most celebrated short stories ever written — a masterclass in subtext, restraint, and emotional tension.Set at a train station in Spain, it captures a quiet conversation between two lovers waiting for a train — a moment in which everything that matters lies between the lines.Presented byLitreading, part ofShort Storyverses— where classic and original tales are read with depth and heart.We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts

en

17:28

The Skylight Room – A Classic Short Story by O. Henry

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/11/04

O. Henry had a gift for wrapping heartbreak in humor. His stories feel light, almost playful—until that last line hits and you realize he’s been quietly aiming for your chest the whole time.InThe Skylight Room, we meet a bright, hopeful young woman renting the smallest, loneliest room in New York. But she still finds a way to fill it—with imagination, with laughter, and with a star she namesBilly Jackson.What happens next is pure O. Henry: tender, tragic, and—somehow—still kind of beautiful.We are

en

38:28

The Hanging Stranger–a Retro Sci-Fi Horror Story by...

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/10/28

This is one of those scary stories that sneaks up on you. Itlooks like just another day in small-town America, sometime around the early 1950s. But then, something is wrong. Something is hanging there. And what’s most unsettling isn’t the horror itself — it’s how calmly everyone else reacts.Philip K. Dick wrote The Hanging Stranger in 1953, and it remains one of his most chilling short stories. It’s about paranoia, conformity, and the terrifying idea that maybe you’re the only one who sees the

en

27:22

Murder of Crows – an Original Short Story by Don...

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/10/21

Please note: "Murder of Crows" is one of the early episodes of my new podcast, New Tales Told. I published it here to share it with my large Litreading audience. However, it will eventually only be available on New Tales Told. If you haven't yet done so, please search for New Tales Told on this podcast service or visit shortstoryverses.com to listen to this and my other original stories.There’s a reason crows gather in cemeteries. They remember. They watch. And sometimes, they wait.Murder of Crows

en

35:36

Luella Miller–A Chilling Classic Short Story by Mary...

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/10/14

Everyone in town has a story about Luella Miller. She never seems to lift a hand, yet somehow, help is always at her side. And those who give it—well, they never quite look the same afterward. Some tales of horror are loud and bloody. This one is quiet, gentle… and suffocating. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman spins a ghostly puzzle where the most dangerous thing may be a smile too sweet to resist.Mary E. Wilkins Freeman wasn’t known for monsters or gore. She wrote about the quiet corners of New England

en

48:26

The Judge's House–a Classic Ghost Story by Bram Stoker

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/10/07

When a young man seeks the perfect place to study for his universitymathematics exams, he finds an isolated house that seems ideal—too ideal. The locals whisper about the Judge's House and about the cruel magistrate who once lived there. But he is a man of science, dismissive of superstition. He believes in mathematical theorems, not ghost stories. As rats scurry through the ancient walls and something enormous watches from the shadows, he'll discover that some equations have solutions that rational

en

4:48

Doctor Chevalier's Lie–a Classic Short Story by Kate...

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/09/30

Kate Chopin’sDoctor Chevalier’s Lieis a moving meditation on compassion in the face of tragedy. Set against the backdrop of a harsh and unforgiving city, the story turns on a doctor’s quiet decision: whether to report what he sees with unflinching honesty, or to soften the truth for the sake of those left behind. Chopin invites us to consider the value of mercy, the weight of dignity, and the moments when a carefully chosen falsehood can become an act of profound kindness.Kate Chopin, born in 1850,

en

28:39

A Chance of Death–a Modern Short Story by Don McDonald

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/09/23

Publishing this story has been one of the scarier things I’ve done in my life. Reading the works of others is far different than narrating a creation of my own. Honestly, I haven’t written fiction since high school—but I’ve always wanted to. It was only the recent advances in AI that allowed me to take one of the stories rattling around in my brain and give it real form and substance. The story is entirely mine, but AI gave me a wise collaborator to help bring it to life. I hope to share more,

en

23:15

The Girl and the Photograph–a Classic Short Story by...

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/09/16

A fleeting glimpse in the pines, a photograph stolen from a friend’s mantel, and a correspondence born from mistaken identity—The Girl and the Photograph by Lucy Maud Montgomery is no simple tale of memory. It’s about the way chance, error, and destiny conspire to test a heart’s fidelity. What begins as a love nurtured by letters and a photograph turns into a crisis of identity, and then, at the last moment, a revelation that love had been waiting patiently all along. This isn’t just about

en

0:59

Forecast: Scary Story Season Coming Soon on Litreading

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/09/10

This October,Litreadingunlocks the crypt withScary Season Stories—a chilling collection of timeless tales that whisper through the centuries. These aren’t slasher screams or jump-scares… they’re the kind of stories thatlinger—in your mind, in your dreams, and in the dark corners of quiet rooms. From Poe to M.R. James, classic horror returns to haunt a new generation.No tricks. Just trembling. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

en

13:36

The Story-Teller–a Classic Short Story by Saki

LitReading - Classic Short Stories ·

2025/09/09

Most stories for children try to teach a lesson—this one tries to blow them up. InThe Storytellerby Saki, an overstuffed train car, three fidgety kids, and one very unconventional tale collide in a wickedly sharp jab at moralistic storytelling. It’s short, twisted, and just the kind of thing you’d expect from an author who clearly didn’t have much patience for either sanctimony or small talk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

en

149 results

Similar Podcasts

وجوه من الـظل

Medi1 Podcast

Classic Radio Science Fiction

solgoodmedia.com

Daily Science Fiction Books

solgoodmedia.com

Time Traveler"s Radio

solgoodmedia.com

Galactic Sci-Fi Broadcasts

solgoodmedia.com