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 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.
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 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.
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 test. Just your ears and a little time. Because the classics aren't homework. They're the stories that refused to die.
Litreading is part of the "Short Storyverses" podcast network. If you love stories, check out our other shows: Season's Readings for holiday tales, New Tales Told for original fiction, Readastorus for stories the whole family can enjoy, and FRIGHTLY for when you want to lose a little sleep. Find them all at shortstoryverses.com.
If you're enjoying Litreading, take a second to tap that five-star rating on Apple Podcasts (or "Rate the Show" five-stars on Spotify). It helps other listeners find the show—and keeps me from taking that two-star rating too personally. Thanks.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Uncle Richard’s New Year Dinner is 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 novel Anne of Green Gables. Writing with warmth, wit, and deep emotional intelligence, Montgomery captured the inner lives of ordinary people and the quiet dramas of home, family, and belonging. Her stories often found beauty in small moments and believed—without sentimentality—that kindness, imagination, and patience could heal even long-held wounds. Though her work is rooted in a specific place and time, its emotional truths remain timeless.
If you love short stories, explore our multiverse of timeless tales at shortstoryverses.com
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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 (1876–1938) was an American writer whose short stories often focused on children, family life, and moments of quiet moral awakening. Writing in the early twentieth century, she was known for her warm realism and her ability to find emotional truth in everyday scenes. Her work appeared widely in magazines of the era and remains admired for its gentle humanity and timeless perspective.
Check out our multiverse of short story podcasts at shortstoryverses.com.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
You've heard it dozens of times, so why not once more. Here's a Visit from St. Nicholas, was it penned by Clement Moore?
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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.com
On Christmas Day in the Morning is 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 music is included not as embellishment, but as part of the text itself— the way it may have lived in the reader’s mind when the story was first published.
Grace S. Richmond (1866–1959) was an American novelist and short-story writer whose work focused on family life, personal responsibility, and the quiet moral decisions that shape ordinary people.
A frequent contributor to publications such as The Ladies’ Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post, Richmond was widely read in the early 20th century. Her Christmas stories, in particular, favored restraint over sentimentality—using the holiday as a setting for reflection, reconciliation, and emotional truth.
Her fiction was written to be shared, remembered, and reread—often aloud, and often at Christmas.
“I Saw Three Ships (Come Sailing In)” Traditional English carol
Performed by Matt Norris & the Moon
Audio sourced from Wikimedia Commons
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (CC BY 3.0)
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
While this is primarily a story for children, Christmas is the perfect time to explore our inner child and share that spirit with today’s kids. This story originally appeared on my Readastorus podcast.
Being a scarecrow is a hard enough job in the best of times, but when winter comes, it can be miserable. Yet, for one scarecrow, a frosty Christmas brought a wonderful opportunity.
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman started writing children’s stories as a teenager to help support her family. She went on to become one of the premier female authors of the late-19th century.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Santa and his friends face the most challenging Christmas in their long history as Santa is kidnapped.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
For many children, Christmas is the best day of the year. Yet, often it’s for selfish reasons. Some kids like it so much that they might wish that Christmas day might never end. One little girl father explains what it might be like if it was “Christmas Every Day” by William Dean Howells.
William Dean Howells was a proponent of literary realism. Called “The Dean of American Letters’” he was a playwright, author, critic andThe Atlantic magazine’s third editor.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sometimes we fall so far that we are tempted to cross lines we never would have in better times. Feelings of inadequacy can become particularly acute during the holiday season, when we see so much apparent happiness. Our next story about one woman’s fall from grace and her Christmas redemption.
Brilliant short story author, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman ’s "A Stolen Christmas" was published in Harper's Bazaar on December 24, 1887
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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.com
Out 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 a long memory in the Frio country, and something—or someone—may be riding back through the brush. O. Henry’s tale unfolds with warmth, tension, and a frontier kind of mercy that arrives in a shape no one expects.
Chaparral Christmas was written by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), the American master of the gently-twisted tale. Known for his frontier characters, ironic turns, and deep affection for ordinary people under pressure, Porter captured both the humor and the heartbreak of American life at the turn of the 20th century. This story reflects his gift for revealing unexpected kindness in the harshest of places.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This holiday tale features Reginald, a fictional young-man born to the Victorian upper crust in England, who finds himself at a stuffy family Christmas party and tries to liven things up a bit.
Saki, the pen name of British author H.H. Munroe, loved skewering the upper class, wielding the weapon of character’s like Reginald, who appeared in several of his short stories.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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.com
When a bad harvest on the Canadian prairie means no Christmas for her cousins, a young woman does the only thing she can to rescue their holiday.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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.com
When does the end justify the means and who gets to decide? One person's definition of morality may not be shared by others.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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.com
How many times have you read “A Christmas Carol” or seen it performed. Every year millions of families rewatch classic Christmas movies like “It a Wonderful Life,” "A Christmas Story" or even "Christmas Vacation?"
For some reason these traditions never get old and create a sense of comfort in their ritual. There are a few short stories that occupy a similar place in our hearts. Like this special holiday reading of O. Henry’s enduring 1905 tale of unselfish love, "The Gift Of the Magi."
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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 Life is one of London’s most quietly devastating works—not because of violence, but because of its honesty.
Jack London, born in 1876, rose from poverty and hard labor to become one of America’s most influential writers. A sailor, gold prospector, journalist, and social critic, he wrote with the authority of someone who had lived every inch of hardship he described. His stories of the North—lean, unsentimental, and deeply human—helped define American literary naturalism and continue to shape how we imagine life on the frontier.
If you enjoyed this story, I’d be grateful if you’d share Litreading or leave a quick review. And for more timeless stories—from classics to brand-new originals—visit ShortStoryverses.com, the home of Litreading, Readastorus, New Tales Told, FRIGHTLY!, and Season’s Readings.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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 by Litreading, part of Short Storyverses — where classic and original tales are read with depth and heart.
We are expanding our universe of short story podcasts on our new podcast channel, Short StoryVerses. Listen to some of Don's new, original short stories on the "New Tales Told" podcast. Look it up on your favorite podcast player.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.