Wall Street, a spring morning at the turn of the century. The ticker is running hot, the telephone won’t quit, and Harvey Maxwell, broker, is handling it all like a man with springs where his heart should be. His clerk thinks the boss is slipping. His stenographer has something on her mind. Then a window opens, and somebody on the Exchange starts clubbing the stuffing out of Union Pacific.O. Henry at full gallop, in a nine-minute comedy from The Four Million, read by Don McDonald.This is a story from the archives recently remastered.Litreading is part of the Short Storyverses network of fiction podcasts. More stories, more feeds, at shortstoryverses.com.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There is a job nobody warns you about. After the dying comes the paperwork, the hold music, the strangers in call centers who need proof that she is gone.For two years she was her mother’s caregiver. Now she is her mother’s administrator. She makes lists. She keeps folders. She is very good at this.Then she reaches the bottom of the last statement.An original story, written and read by Don McDonald. Explore our multiverses of short fiction at shortstoryverses.com.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every house party has a guest who knows too much.A mild little man named Cornelius Appin has spent seventeen years on one problem. He believes he's solved it: he has taught a cat to speak. The company around Lady Blemley's tea table does not believe him — and that, as it happens, is the last comfortable moment anyone in the house will enjoy.Pour yourself some tea. Mind the saucer.Saki was the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916), the sharpest wit of the Edwardian age. Born in Burma and raised in Devon by a grandmother and two aunts he could not abide, he became a foreign correspondent before turning his pen on polite society. He borrowed his pen name from the cupbearer in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. When war came in 1914, he enlisted as a private at forty-three and refused a commission; he was killed by a sniper in France on November 14, 1916. His last words were “Put that bloody cigarette out.”“Tobermory” first appeared in the Westminster Gazette in 1909 and was collected in The Chronicles of Clovis in 1911.Read by Don McDonald. LitReading is part of the Short Storyverses network. shortstoryverses.comThis is a story from the archives recently remastered.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 our narrative podcasts at shortstoryverses.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Winter, 1906. A clerk who speaks to no one from Saturday to Monday buys a mahogany graphophone for far less than it’s worth. The widow selling it keeps her eyes on the snow. Her husband, she says, liked to keep his own voice.He carries it home and records his diary each night, and the machine hands him back to himself, the nearest thing to company he has. Then the wax starts holding something he never put there.For more short stories, visit ShortStoryverses.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A farmer lies dead in his bed with a rope around his neck. That morning his wife sat in the kitchen, pleating her apron, and said she slept through it.So the men come out to the farmhouse: the sheriff, the county attorney, and the neighbor who found her. They search the cold rooms for something that will hold up in court. Two of their wives ride along to gather a few things for the woman in the county jail. Nobody expects much from them.The kitchen is a mess of unfinished chores and small things left where they fell.Susan Glaspell once covered a murder case like this as a young reporter in Iowa, and it stayed with her. She wrote the story in 1917, and a century later it still hasn't loosened its grip.This is a story from the archives recently remastered.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nobody in New Orleans had ever made Bernard de Marigny look foolish in public. He was rich past counting, small as a foil, and very likely the most dangerous man in Louisiana with a pistol in his hand. Then a blacksmith from a far parish, seven feet of him and slow to speak, said something true on the floor of the legislature, and the whole chamber laughed.The card came to the forge two days later.The blacksmith was no duelist. He was, however, a man who had spent his life learning where something hard gives.From Short Storyverses. More at shortstoryverses.com.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A man in a country pub insists his story is true. It concerns his brother Wilfred, a chemist of some genius, a jolly outdoor girl with a wholesome sunburn, and a Yorkshire baronet who spells his name with four small f's. Somebody is being kept behind a locked door on the second floor. Somebody else is about to regret asking what's true to life.This is P.G. Wodehouse, 1926, at his most gleefully unreliable.First published in Liberty, August 7, 1926; collected in Meet Mr. Mulliner, 1927. Read by Don McDonald. HumorUs is part of the Short Storyverses network. shortstoryverses.comThis is a story from the archives recently remastered.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An obituary arrives in the mail, folded in thirds, no note, no return address, and the creases are sharp enough to cut with.Roy Kittleson has not seen the man named in it since a Friday in 1986, and he has his reasons, and none of them are good. He drives up anyway. Three hours, most of it flat.He has rehearsed nothing. He is counting on grief to arrive on its own.“The Wrong Funeral,” is an original story written and read by Don McDonald from ShortStoryverses.com.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here is the first episode of a new Short Storyverses limited series podcast, Care Protocol.Nobody has died on a Portland street in four years. The city handed over the wheel eight years ago and got back quiet nights, clean air, and a fatality rate of zero. Ask anyone. The algorithms saved us.Then, at 7:12 on an ordinary Tuesday, a man waiting for his morning ride is killed against a brick wall at Fifth and Glisan—in front of three witnesses who all describe the same impossible thing. Before lunch, there is a second.The company’s lawyers called the police seven minutes after the first death. That was six minutes before anyone called them.Special Agent Maya Restrepo catches the case: deaths that could not have happened, and a maintenance log with a sentence sitting in it where a number should be.You’re hearing Episode One of Care Protocol as a special LitReading bonus. The story continues on its own separate podcast, and future episodes will not appear in the LitReading feed. Search for and follow Care Protocol wherever you get your podcasts.In Episode Two of Care Protocol:Something happens on a stretch of I-5 outside Wilsonville, caught from nine angles. By Friday morning, there isn’t a screen in the country that hasn’t run it. By Saturday, the country has decided what it means—and Maya Restrepo is the only person still asking the other question.Episode Two arrives Wednesday, September 16, exclusively in the Care Protocol podcast feed.Explore our multiverse of narrated short stories at ShortStoryVerses.com.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Garden was finished before anyone in it was born. The rain arrives on schedule, in the amount that has been decided. The manual has never been improved on.Nobody touches anybody. Children learn it early, with the short rod, because correcting is cheapest when they're small.Sela is twenty-two and has never had a low year. When the tremor takes the hands of the old man who grades pears beside her, she stands up and says, "I'll take that." Nothing forbids it. There is even a provision.Two hundred and nine times. Over twenty months.Somebody is keeping the number.“The Garden’s Wall” started with a question I couldn’t put down. What would a society look like if it decided, sincerely and on the evidence, that compassion was a defect to be bred out? Not a cruel place. A reasonable one, where the punishment is measured, the reasoning is sound, and nobody enjoys any part of it.The answer turned out to be a garden, and a wall nobody built, and a gate that opens outward, and forty-one people put through it in a single lifetime.Please check out my many universes of short stories at shortstoryverses.com and my long-running money podcast, Talking Real Money.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A December afternoon, a fire going down, and a marriage stalled halfway through a quarrel nobody bothered to finish. Egbert comes in for tea prepared to be reasonable, then conciliatory, then almost penitent. Lady Anne, rigid in the armchair by the tea table, declines to participate. Somewhere above them a bullfinch works through the only tune it knows, and on the rug a Persian cat named Don Tarquinio waits with the patience of an animal who has already decided something.Saki at his most precise: eleven minutes of drawing-room comedy built entirely out of one person not speaking, and a closing line that reorganizes everything you just heard."The Reticence of Lady Anne" was collected in Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches (1910). Read by Don McDonald.Litreading is part of Short Storyverses. shortstoryverses.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Poker Flat is a mining camp that has recently decided to take its virtue seriously. When the town's new moral committee finishes its business, four of its most familiar faces find themselves traveling a mountain trail with strangers who know far too much about one another's pasts. Among them is a gambler whose quiet confidence suggests he has already calculated every card that has not yet been dealt.Bret Harte's classic American story unfolds where the Sierra Nevada meets the law of unexpected consequences. In the company of strangers, with old judgments left behind in the valley below, the outcasts of Poker Flat discover that the line between sinner and saint is rarely where the town's respectable citizens believe it to be. A timeless tale about the hands we are dealt, the hands we play, and the surprising hands we never see coming.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is not a story.After dozens of episodes, I thought I'd take one to explain myself. Who I am, why LitReading exists, how a story earns a place here, and why there are suddenly so many related shows sharing the same shelf. Also a few honest words about advertising, a tip jar I'd rather call Buy Me a Book, a request for a review, and a listener who found my narration unlistenable.Don's Money podcast is Talking Real MoneyIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 sittingIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Another perfect Summer Story from Litreading.A sailor given up for drowned walks back through his own shop door, three years gone, with a fresh scar and a long story about shipwreck, islands, and rescue. His wife weeps with joy. His mother-in-law only sniffs. And across town an old fortune-teller waits with a little china bowl and a great deal to say about where the man has really been. "The Castaway" is W.W. Jacobs at his lightest, a small seaside comedy of belief, suspicion, and a homecoming that goes nowhere near the way anyone planned. The truth here is a slippery thing, and the teller may not be the one you expect.W.W. Jacobs (1863 to 1943) was an English writer best known today for the horror classic "The Monkey's Paw," though in his own time he was celebrated mostly for comic stories, many of them set among sailors, dock workers, and the small coastal towns they came home to. "The Castaway" shows that lighter, sharper side, the wit that made him a popular favorite long before a single cursed wish made him famous.Litreading is part of Short Storyverses, a network of fiction podcasts gathering the strange, the funny, and the quietly unsettling, all of it read aloud. Find every show and every story at shortstoryverses.com.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In April, 2026, an American F-15E Strike Eagle went down over western Iran. The weapons officer ejected into the Zagros Mountains and was eventually recovered, in an operation whose full scope remains classified, but which is understood to have involved the destruction of hundreds of millions of dollars in American aircraft on the ground rather than risk leaving them, or him, behind.The Crevice is a work of fiction built on the bones of that event. The names are invented. The mountain is invented. The man wedged into the rock is invented. But the cost was real. The promise that brought the helicopters in was real. And the men who flew through the dark to keep that promise, the special operators and aircrews who do this work in places most of us will never know about, for people whose names they will never learn, they are real, and they are the reason the story ends the way it does.This story is being presented on Litreading for limited time to help build the audience for its eventual primary home, New Tales Told part of Short Storyverses. New Tales Told is made up of totally original modern stories written with the feel of classic short stories (suitable for all ages). There are now fourteen original stories so please check start listening and subscribing to New Tales Told. On Apple Podcasts it is part of the Short Storyverses Channel.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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lady Carlotta misses her train, and a stranger on the platform mistakes her for the new governess. Rather than correct the error, Lady Carlotta decides to accept the position — and teach history by a method the Quabarl household will not soon forget. From the inimitable Saki, a story of social comeuppance served with perfect composure.Saki was the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro, born in Burma in 1870 and raised in England by two strict aunts whose tyrannies would later populate his fiction. He worked as a journalist and foreign correspondent before turning to the short story, where his wit, elegance, and appetite for mischief found their natural home. He enlisted at the outbreak of the First World War and was killed by a sniper in France in 1916.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During the Civil War, the military's telegraph network was run by civilians. Teenagers, some of them. Elias Murrow was nineteen, careful, and precise. He trusted the procedure because the procedure had never failed him. Then two messages arrived that couldn't both be real, and he did exactly what he was trained to do.This story is being presented on Litreading for limited time to help build the audience for its eventual primary home, New Tales Told part of Short Storyverses. New Tales Told is made up of totally original modern stories written with the feel of classic short stories (suitable for all ages). There are now fourteen original stories so please check start listening and subscribing to New Tales Told. On Apple Podcasts it is part of the Short Storyverses Channel.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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A chance reunion at a Paris café. A photograph of a woman who looks like she's hiding something. And a story that asks a question Wilde never quite answers: What's worse, a woman with a secret, or a woman who simply loves the appearance of having one? Oscar Wilde's "The Sphinx Without a Secret," published in 1887, is a small, perfect jewel of a story about mystery, obsession, and the danger of needing people to be more complicated than they are.Oscar Wilde wrote "The Sphinx Without a Secret" in 1887, when he was thirty-three and already the most quotable man in England. He's remembered for the big things, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," "The Importance of Being Earnest," the trials that destroyed him. But pieces like this one remind you that he could do more with a photograph and a cup of coffee than most writers can do with a hundred pages.f you enjoyed this story, there's a lot more where it came from. At ShortStoryverses.com you'll find all of our podcasts: New Tales Told for original fiction, Season's Readings for holiday stories, Readastorus for the whole family, and FRIGHTLY for when you want to lose a little sleep. And if you've got a second, tap that five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Committee Committee is a parable set in a village where things run smoothly—because they always have.Problems are addressed. Responsibilities are shared. And when questions arise, there is a structure in place to handle them.Over time, that structure has grown more refined, more comprehensive… and more complete.This story is being presented on Litreading for limited time to help build the audience for its eventual primary home, New Tales Told part of Short Storyverses. New Tales Told is made up of totally original modern stories written with the feel of classic short stories (suitable for all ages). There are now fourteen original stories so please check start listening and subscribing to New Tales Told. On Apple Podcasts it is part of the Short Storyverses Channel.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are things we expect from the world.Walls stay still. Rooms hold their shape. The spaces we live in behave.And when they don’t, we look for explanations.Old houses settle. Pipes shift. Light plays tricks.But sometimes the world doesn’t explain itself.When an answer can’t be seen, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.There is something.Something all too real.Something beyond frightening.This story is being presented on Litreading for limited time to help build the audience for its eventual primary home, New Tales Told part of Short Storyverses. New Tales Told is made up of totally original modern stories written with the feel of classic short stories (suitable for all ages). There are now fourteen original stories so please check start listening and subscribing to New Tales Told. On Apple Podcasts it is part of the Short Storyverses Channel.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

First published in 1870, “My Watch” is one of Mark Twain’s sharpest short comic essays. What begins as a simple adjustment to a timepiece becomes an escalating satire of overconfidence, technical jargon, and the human tendency to meddle with what already works. In fewer than ten minutes, Twain turns a minor inconvenience into a masterclass in comic exaggeration.Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, born in 1835. A riverboat pilot, journalist, lecturer, and one of America’s most enduring humorists, Twain built his reputation on sharp observation, comic exaggeration, and a deep skepticism of human certainty. His works include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but he was equally at home in short essays like this one — small mechanical failures turned into very large human truths.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every crime begins as a solution. At least to someone. This is a story about a solution. A rented room. A promise. And a man who believes he is doing what’s necessary.This story is being presented on Litreading for limited time to help build the audience for its eventual primary home, New Tales Told part of Short Storyverses. New Tales Told is made up of totally original modern stories written with the feel of classic short stories (suitable for all ages). There are now fourteen original stories so please check start listening and subscribing to New Tales Told. On Apple Podcasts it is part of the Short Storyverses Channel.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Published in 1921, The Doll’s House is one of Katherine Mansfield’s most quietly powerful stories. Set in a small New Zealand community, it explores class, exclusion, and childhood cruelty through something deceptively simple: the arrival of an elaborate doll’s house.Mansfield does not moralize. Instead, she observes. Through small gestures and overheard whispers, she reveals how social hierarchies are absorbed and enforced — even by children.At its center is a tiny amber lamp. And a moment of grace.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This story is not about the America we live in.It’s about an America that could exist—slowly, legally, and quietly—if people stop asking questions.Civic Duty follows a retired teacher whose life is reduced to data points, compliance scores, and administrative decisions.A speculative warning about what happens when systems replace judgment and loyalty becomes measurable.This story is being presented on Litreading for limited time to help build the audience for its eventual primary home, New Tales Told part of Short Storyverses. New Tales Told is made up of totally original modern stories written with the feel of classic short stories (suitable for all ages). There are now more than a dozen original stories so please check them out.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Set in the frozen Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, it follows a man traveling alone through temperatures so extreme they defy ordinary experience. Confident in his judgment and dismissive of risk, he presses forward—unaware of how narrow his margin for error truly is.With stark realism and relentless tension, London explores humanity’s limits in the face of nature’s indifference. This is not a story of heroic triumph. It is a story of judgment, instinct, and the consequences of small mistakes in unforgiving conditions.First published in 1908, To Build a Fire remains a timeless classic of American literature.If you enjoy great stories narrated by Don, be sure to check out his other short story podcasts at shortstoryverses.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here is a quiet story about love that arrives too late, and lingers in unexpected ways.About two people who find each other where they never expected to meet.And what it means to hold on, even when you know you can’t.Please check out our other short story universes are shortstoryverses.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant is a classic tale of ambition, illusion, and unintended consequences.In this short, elegant story, a young woman’s desire for wealth and status leads her down a path she never expected.A quiet masterpiece with a devastating final twist.Guy de Maupassant was a nineteenth-century French writer and one of the masters of the modern short story.He wrote hundreds of stories, known for their clarity, irony, and emotional precision.His work often explored class, ambition, and the hidden costs of desire.The Necklace, published in 1884, remains one of his most famous and enduring stories.If you want more stories like this, go to shortstoryverses.com. You’ll find a whole story universe there: classic literature brought to life, original fiction, stories for younger listeners, and themed collections for whatever mood you’re in.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a special presentation of my original short story, “The Right Call,” first released on my companion podcast, New Tales Told.For now, I’ll be sharing my new stories here on Litreading as well—so you can hear them easily, without having to go looking.Litreading will always remain a home for classic short fiction. These are simply new stories, told in the same spirit.The Right Call is a work of fiction, loosely inspired by a real turning point in my own life.The events, characters, station, and circumstances have been changed. What remains is the emotional truth of a moment many people recognize: standing at a crossroads between what looks sensible and what feels right.This story isn’t about radio.It’s about listening—to others, and to yourself—when the script stops working.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Bet is a devastating meditation on freedom, knowledge, money, and the illusions we cling to when we mistake intellect for wisdom and wealth for meaning. Sparse, icy, and quietly explosive, this story leaves no one untouched—not the characters, and not the listener.Anton Chekhov was a Russian physician, playwright, and master of the modern short story. Writing at the turn of the twentieth century, Chekhov rejected melodrama in favor of moral ambiguity, emotional restraint, and brutal psychological honesty.His stories rarely offer heroes or villains—only people, trapped by their own beliefs, habits, and blind spots. With surgical precision and profound compassion, Chekhov reshaped fiction, influencing generations of writers who followed.He believed that a writer’s job was not to provide answers—but to ask questions so clearly that the reader could not escape them.The Bet is one of his sharpest.You're invited to explore our many short story podcasts at shortstoryverses.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a special presentation of my new original short story, "The Eternal Code," first released on my companion podcast, New Tales Told. Until the new podcast finds its audience, I will continue to post my original stories at Litreading, too. 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 ourselves that memory lives in bones, in blood, in history books and hard drives. But memory is older than all of that. Memory is the original technology. And once it learned how to survive us, it never stopped evolving.The Eternal Code is a story about inheritance that has nothing to do with money and everything to do with continuity. About the quiet arrogance of believing we are the end of the line. About a signal so deeply embedded in humanity that we mistake it for destiny.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW 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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW 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.comWe 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.comOn 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 carolPerformed by Matt Norris & the MoonAudio sourced from Wikimedia CommonsLicensed 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.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 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.comWhen 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.comWhen 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.comHow 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.

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 Christmas is 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 survival.But the home he slips into isn’t just any home. It’s the place where his past—and his pain—wait in the shadows. What follows is a moving story of recognition, forgiveness, and the kind of unconditional love that can pull even the most broken soul back from the brink.Cather’s tale blends realism with emotional clarity, delivering a Christmas story that avoids sentimentality while celebrating the deepest meaning of the season: the moment when grace replaces despair, and a prodigal child returns to the arms that never stopped waiting.Willa Cather (1873–1947) was one of America’s finest novelists, best known for My Ántonia, O Pioneers!, and Death Comes for the Archbishop. Early in her career she wrote under the pen name Elizabeth L. Seymour, producing short stories and sketches that revealed her gift for capturing human frailty and quiet courage. The Burglar’s Christmas, first published in 1896, shows her emerging voice—clear, empathetic, and profoundly attuned to the inner lives of ordinary people.This episode is part of Short Storyverses, a storytelling universe of classic tales, original fiction, children’s adventures, and holiday stories. Explore them all 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 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.comThis seasonal story features a theme that will resonate with most couple’s in the weeks leading up to Christmas.Beginning his writing career as a newspaper reporter George Ade went on the become a nationally syndicated columnist, playwright, humorist and popular author in the early 20th century. Ade is best know for his series of fables based on American slang.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.comUnlike Christmas stories Thanksgiving stories are sparse. To celebrate the season, here is the tale of a proper New England celebration combined with a classic love story.The 19th century novels and stories of Edward Payson Roe were very popular in their day. Being a Presbyterian minister, his works had a religious and moral foundation. One of his greatest criticism were the sermonly characteristics of his stories which may explain their wide acceptance during the Victorian age.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.comO. Henry often found the heart of a story in the everyday moments most people overlook. The Purple Dress is 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, warmth, and his famous twist endings. His work captures the daily lives of ordinary Americans — especially the clerks and shopgirls of early-20th-century New York — with compassion and insight.About Short StoryversesThis story appears as part of Short Storyverses, a collection of storytelling podcasts for every mood:Explore them all 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 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.Somewhere there’s a great story for almost every holiday, even the decidedly American tradition of Thanksgiving and who better to tell such a story than one of America’s finest authors, O. Henry.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.

Without individual compassion, the good, old days were rarely good for orphaned or disabled children. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Early in the US Civil War, families, particularly those in the western part of Virginia (now the state of West Virginia), were torn apart over conflicting loyalties. This story is a fictional account of one young soldier who chose to fight for his country rather than his state.Ambrose served in the Union Army during the Civil War. He became the most famous Civil War storyteller of all time. This story was first published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1889. Years later, Bierce vanished while travel with rebel troops during the Mexican Revolutionary War in 1913.If you haven’t yet, you should also listen to Bierce’s most famous story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” also on Litreading. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW 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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Not all dragons are fire breathing monsters bent on destruction. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Professional baseball in United States dates back more than 150 years. It has been considered the great American sport since the 19th century. Popular sports attract rabid fans as was the case even back in 1910 when Zane Grey wrote Old Well Well.Known for his Western novels, Zane Gray was one of the most popular authors of the 20th century. Gray was also a huge baseball fan and published a number of stories about the sport. One of the first American authors to become a millionaire, more than 100 movies were made from his popular tales. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW 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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Saki's recurring character, Clovis takes on an overly proud motherIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Twain's first popular story of a hardcore gambler in a mining camp during the Gold Rush. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.In The 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 names Billy Jackson.What happens next is pure O. Henry: tender, tragic, and—somehow—still kind of beautiful.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We reprise another classic thriller from Litreading's archives for this year's scary season,In this episode, we go on an adventure off the coast of South America, as a famous big game hunter finds himself stranded on an island where hunting has been elevated to a new and frightening level. It’s time to play “The Most Dangerous Game.”"The Most Dangerous Game" has been called "the most popular story ever written in English" and was made into a 1932 movie. It’s author, Richard Connell was one of the most famous American short story writers in the early 20th Century. He was also a screenwriter who won an Academy Award in 1942 for his original screenplay “Meet John Doe.”If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This dark, thriller deserves to be included in our reprise of classic stories for the scary season. Written by one of America’s greatest writers, Sinclair Lewis, "The Willow Walk" features some fascinating characters, shocking twists, and powerful imagery. It is also one of our longest stories clocking in at over one hour.In addition to winning a Pulitzer Prize, Sinclair Lewis was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930. Like many great artists, he had a brief and truly brilliant period, after which the quality of his work declined markedly.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kate Chopin’s Doctor Chevalier’s Lie is 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, was among the first American writers to explore the hidden truths of everyday lives. Living in Louisiana, she drew on its people and culture to shape her work. Her novel The Awakening shocked readers of her time but is now praised as a classic of American realism. In her short stories, like Doctor Chevalier’s Lie, she showed how even the smallest choices can carry profound humanity.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can we tell the difference between benevolence and predation? If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when hate overwhelms love? If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We have every reason to love these people, yet we don't. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every day we are bombarded by images of unattainable beauty, regaled with stories of fame, and envious of those who have attained great wealth. It’s easy to lose sight of our important contributions to the world and those around us. No matter how we have ended up , we all started as a figurative "handful of clay."Henry van Dyke was a well-known clergyman, English professor, and author. He spent almost a quarter century teach English Literature at Princeton, while writing numerous short stories in his spare time. He also composed several verses of “My Country Tis of Thee,” America’s unofficial national anthem prior to the “Star Spangled Banner’s” gaining official anthem status in 1931. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A young woman stumbles upon a drunk with whom she forms a bond until she learns more. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A sick young woman is saved by a final kind gesture. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Joyce’s “Araby” is ranked among the pantheon of greatest short stories ever written. In this timeless coming of age tale an adolescent boy, blinded by a hormonal fog, falls for a neighbor girl.Now considered one of the classics of literature, the 1914 collection of short stories, Dubliners, of which “Araby” was an early part was an initial failure selling less than 400 copies. Of those almost a third were purchased Joyce himself. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can an almost perfectly planned crime be solved? That question is answered in this classic mystery by one of the early 20th Century's most popular, fictional medical detectives, Dr. Thorndyke.Sandwiched between the Sherlock Holmes mysteries of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the whodunnits of Agatha Christie are R. Austin Freeman's "whocatchums." Freeman pioneered the concept of the inverted detective story, in which the whole crime is explained before the investigation. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For much of human existence we have questioned the concept of time. Is it always a constant or can it be manipulated, allowing us to move forward or backward chronologically. In this 19th century story, two cousins speculate about the age of their aunt whom they visited regularly, until they discovered the secrets of her old clock.In 1881, several years before H.G. Wells even started writing his classic, “The Time Machine,” newspaper editor Edward Page Mitchell published his time travel story anonymously in his newspaper “The New York Sun.” Considered to be the true father of science fiction, Mitchell had penned stories about traveling father that light (1874), artificial intelligence and cryogenics (1879). Look for more stories from this lesser known sci-fi master in future episodes. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There is a power that comes from giving without expectation of reward. A self-sacrificing spirit is the theme for Irish author Oscar Wilde’s short story.The Model Millionaire first appeared in print in the newspaper The World in June 1887. The story’s author, Oscar Wilde, was one of the 19th century’s most famous authors and playrights penning works like The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.Late in his life, Wilde served almost two years at hard labor after being convicting of violating England’s draconian laws against homosexual behavior. He died just over three years after his release at age 46. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Note from Don: Listening back to this story before posting it, I have to say that it moved me more than most – and I spent a few days reading, narrating, and editing it."The Rocking Horse Winner" entered the public domain at the beginning of 2022 and is considered one of the all-time best stories. It’s about a young boy’s dysfunctional relationship with his parents, under stress for living well beyond their means.Like most great short stories, The Rocking Horse winner has it's roots in the author's own childhood. His well-educated mother expressed similar frustrations with Lawrence’s blue collar father. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mankind has always loved to explore sometimes crossing great wildernesses, but more often just poking around in our own backyards. This light-hearted tale is about a group of men who decide to investigate a local cave and literally stumble across a huge surprise.Stephen Crane was born years after the US Civil War ended, but is best known for his stirring 1895 Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage. Crane was also a prolific writer of short stories, many of which ranged from actual war stories to the more personal battles of people against the wilderness or themselves. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 remembering a face—it’s about recognizing a soul when it finally stands before you.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Life has a nasty habit of throwing us curves that we can either cause us long-term misery or force us to make the best of a bad situation as illustrated in this very short tale.Anton Chekhov was undoubtedly brilliant. A physician by trade, his premier talent was writing. Chekhov had a unparalleled gift for understanding the depths of human emotions and sharing them first through his short stories and later, his plays. Chekhov once said “Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress.” If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Virginia Woolf demonstrates how simply focusing on one thing has the power to unleash torrents of thoughts and memories.Born Adeline Virginia Stephen in 1882, British author Virginia Woolf went on to become an icon of modern 20th century literature. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are those for whom work becomes an obsession to the detriment of their personal lives. The businessman in our next story gives new meaning to the modern term “workaholic.”William Henry Porter, better known as O. Henry led a short albeit intriguing life. Before he died in New York City in 1910 at age 47, Porter was a pharmacist, sheep ranch hand, draftsman, banker, and prolific author of short stories. Oh, and he was also a convicted embezzler who served time in federal prison. 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.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We aren't the first generation to be frustrated by advancing technology. More than a century ago, new fangled products were making people crazy like this gentleman who supposedly related our next hilarious tale Mark Twain.Mark Twain (the pen name of Samuel Clemens) had an unmatched knack for taking a normal story and turning it into a hilariously funny tall tale. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We have been sharing stories with each other since the beginning of time. On occasion these tales have been known to grow a bit tall, as was the case when four elderly seamen spent an evening with a widow sharing a variety of yarns each one wilder than the next. Then the wood adds a tale of her own.Frank Stockton was a 19th century author and humorist with an uncanny knack for poking fun a human failings. One of his most famous stories was "The Lady or the Tiger." If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Racism has always been an ugly part of the human condition. Yet, the horrors of racism in America are most undeniably illustrated by the treatment of African-Americans, particularly in the South. Here is just a small example of the pain caused by racial hatred in antebellum Louisiana.I have presented the story exactly as written, as the author, Kate Chopin, lived during this terrible period in US history. Just five years after the end of the Civil War, Chopin married a French-American and lived with him for more than a decade in Louisiana. While Chopin’s brilliant writing is as powerful today as it was more than a century ago, it, like so many other tales of the time, focused on the suffering of white characters, ignoring the true cruelty suffered by their slaves. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The lure of an illicit affair is not a new facet of human nature. People have been both tempting and tempted throughout time. But for a sudden twist of fate, our next story might have ended badly for everyone involved.Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a 19th-century French author considered one the era greatest short storyist spinning realistic tales of the human condition If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most stories for children try to teach a lesson—this one tries to blow them up. In The Storyteller by 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.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our second tale in this story series by a young Ernest Hemingway picks up a few months after our last story, "The End of Something," which you might want to hear before listening to this tale. A few month's after his breakup, Nick visits his friend Bill as a fall storm hits the Horton’s Bay region.Our second tale in this story series by a young Ernest Hemingway picks up a few months after our last story, The End of Something, which you might want to hear before listening to this tale in which Nick visits his friend Bill as a fall storm hits the Horton’s Bay region If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This story is part of a series of tales written by a young Earnest Hemingway. It’s a “slice of life” story about the conflicting emotions in a relationship between a young couple. “The End of Something” was written when Hemingway was in his early 20s and features a recurring semi-autobiographical character, Nick Adams. The story had its roots in an early romance that began when Hemingway was in his late teens. Nick became a regular part of Hemingway’s early works and is featured in our next tale which follows chronologically, “The Three Day Blow.” If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When the plans for a top-secret British defense project are stolen and the apparent thief is found dead, the government turns to legendary detective Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery and find the documents. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marriage takes the simple concept of procreation and turns it into a lifelong commitment that can, at times, lead to unexpected anger and resentment. As Mark Twain once said, "God's great cosmic joke on the human race was requiring that men and women live together in marriage.” Anyone who has ever been married will see parallels to their own partnerships.Despite the fact that Edna Ferber never married, she was an astute observer of people. That led her to great success as a writer. Her 1925 novel, "So Big," was a best-seller and won Ferber a Pulitzer Prize. The book was made into three movies. Her subsequent book, "Show Boat" was turned into a popular musical and her 1952 book "Giant" was the seed for the popular move of the same name starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How times have changed. Just over a century ago, women were still fighting for the right to vote and the prevailing belief among men was that they were too emotional and fragile to do so. Our next story takes place, ironically, in a fictional Britain in the wake of a great plague. Join me as we travel back to a very different world in Hermann the Irascible by SakiSaki was the nome de plume of British author, H.H. Munro who was a prolific short story writer around the turn of the twentieth century. His wit, insight and style are unmistakable and incredibly enjoyable, even if the subject is a bit dated. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Women’s health issues have long been explained away as emotional issues due to their role as the “weaker sex.” Serious illnesses were diagnosed as nothing more than hysteria and rest was prescribed. This ignorance of women’s real health problems is brilliantly portrayed in this haunting tale of a woman driven to the brink.The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman actually suffered a horrible case of post partum depression for which she was treated in a similar condescending manner. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This witty tale is about a veritable snake-oil salesman who uses his wares to help win the love of a beautiful young ward of an English Baronet. British author P. G. Woodhouse was one of the mid-20th century’s most popular humorists – on both side of the Atlantic. He was also a lyricist and screenwriter. While living in France a the beginning of World War II, he was imprisoned by Germany, for whom he made some controversial broadcasts. After the war he and his wife Edith moved to the United States. 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.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can we best learn life’s secrets during our short lives? Is the best student the one with eyes fixed on the words in a book or focused on the world around them? That is the fundamental question of this profound short tale.Often, it is the shortest stories that impart the most profound notions. This tale is one of many thoughtful, brief short stories penned by late 19th-century American feminist author Kate Chopin. Chopin was a prolific writer, who published more than 100 short stories and novels before her death in 1904. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Life in the ancient world was often brutal and cruel. Resources were often limited leading to leaders ruthless edicts. In this old Japanese folktale, a young peasant is faced with an impossible decision.Matsuo Basho, one of Japan’s most famous poets, was born 1644 and is known for creating the poetic style that eventually evolved into what are now known as haikus. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Human cruelty is nothing new. It has been a demon we have had to battle since the dawn of our kind. Yet, we also have the capacity to defeat our callousness and inhumanity (a term that drips with irony). This short powerful short story illustrates the depth our inner evil.Note: while this story shares a name with a Disney animated movie they are in no way related.One of the true masters of the short story, Guy de Maupassant was born in France in 1850. After serving in the Franco-Prussian War de Maupassant was taken in by well-known French author Gustav Flaubert where he was exposed to some of the greatest writers of the era. His stories were (and still are) so popular that the only Shakespeare has had more stories adapted into movies. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This tale flips the traditional "boy meets girl" fairy-tale narrative by introducing a strong-willed nature loving girl who puts her own desires and beliefs ahead of those of a young man she meets in the woods.The child of a rural family doctor in Maine, Sarah Orne Jewett was writing short stories professionally from age 18. Most of her work was purchased by The Atlantic magazine, with the glaring exception of "The White Heron." The story went of the become the title piece of her first book and her most popular story. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here is a story for those times when you only have a few minutes for a story. While not long itself, this incredibly Kafkaesque parable may leave you pondering its meaning long after you have listened to "Before the Law."Bohemian author Franz Kafka is considered one of the greats. Few storytellers have had their names turned into adjectives. Orwellian, maybe Hitchcockian come to mind. But the best known of these is Kafkaesque, whose meaning is elusive, like that of many Kafka stories. I have my own somewhat religious interpretation of “Before the Law.” I will leave it to you to ponder your own.  If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For almost a century, the profound words of The Prophet have stirred the hearts and moved the souls of millions of readers around the world. 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here is the second half of Kahlil Gibran's global bestselling book with sage advice on pain and pleasure, good and evil, and the inevitability of death. 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Loneliness can grind a man down like a millstone—yet grief, transformed, can become the miller’s divine salvation. A widowed man turns a forgotten mill into a memorial for his lost little girl, and fate brings a stranger—fragile, secretive—who just might be the miracle he’s been waiting for.He called himself O. Henry, but the man behind the pen was William Sydney Porter—a sneaky little Texan with a mustache, a wicked sense of irony, and a knack for surprise endings that snap like mousetraps. He wrote hundreds of short stories while dodging his past, which included a stint as a pharmacist, a failed bank career (let’s just say the books didn’t balance), and yes, a little time behind bars. But prison gave him a pen name and plenty of time to dream up twisty tales of crooks with hearts of gold, lovers with bad timing, and small moments that change everything.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Record summer temperature’s take their toll on both our physical and mental health. Extreme weather has been known to bring about strange and often dangerous behavior among those suffering its effects. How strange, I’ll let you be the judge in our special summer tale, August Heat. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Grief and heartbreak are the typical reactions to the loss of a loved one, but other emotions may lurk within. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So far, all of our public domain stories were created prior to 1925. However, there are a few newer tales that are no longer copyright protected. From one of the world’s best science fiction writer’s comes a tale of idioms and aliens.Essentially, this story is a long dad joke. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I, a dad, did.Even if you don’t know his name, you know the work of Philip K. Dick. Several of his books and stories have been adapted into movies and Tv shows like: Total Recall, Minority Report and Man in the High Castle. He died in 1982 of a stroke just four months before his blockbuster movie, Blade Runner opened. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On a cold New Year’s Eve, Nellie peers into a mirror, searching for a glimpse of her happily-ever-after. Instead, the glass betrays her—offering not romance, but a haunting vision of what marriage might truly hold: struggle, sickness, disappointment. Chekhov doesn’t give us a fairy tale—he gives us the nightmare behind the dream.Anton Chekhov was Russia’s great observer of the quiet tragedies hiding in ordinary lives. A doctor by trade and a writer by necessity, he had an uncanny ability to turn small moments into revelations. His plays reshaped modern theater, his stories redefined the short form, and together they whispered a timeless truth: life is never as simple—or as sweet—as we hope it to be.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A young man's longing for love is briefly fulfilled on one moonlight evening on the sea off the coast of Cannes. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thankfully, I can now read Hemingway to you. This story is a powerful way to start. It’s a tale of duty, pain, suffering, racism and so much more. It has myriad twists and turns and all manner of fascinating subplots for such a short story. You may need to listen more than once. Hemingway penned this early work at the age of 24, shortly after the birth of his first child (which may explain the subject matter) by his first wife. It wasn’t published until 1925 and later became part of his first short story collection. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here is a biting satire of Victorian Era British upper class from the perspective of the family cat who gains a startling new skill.Saki was the pen name of British author, H.H. Munro who was one of true masters of the short story.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.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Being a dog person, some of my favorite stories feature dogs. It only seems fair to feature a feline character. And you couldn’t ask for a story than one from a two time Pulitzer Prize winner.This story was part of Booth Tarkington’s extremely popular Penrod stories, that, during their day rivaled the popularity of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Tarkington is only one of three authors to win two Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction. The other two: Faulkner and Updike. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome aboard an early 20th Century trans-pacific ocean liner where one is likely to be stuck for weeks with any number of unusual characters. Of course, we are likely to put a great deal of stock in first impressions when it often pays to wait to get to know someone.Never a darling of the critics, W. Someset Maugham (the W is for William) was a prolific author and playwright. He was best known for his short stories many of which were fictional global travelogues. Because so many of his works were turned into early motion pictures, Maugham was the world’s best paid writer in the 1930s. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A rural mountain couple struggle with their differences, anger, and overpowering love for each other. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A new love springs from the conversations of two sisters and a couple of moles. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When a preacher failed to stir the emotions of his congregants he resorts to the time tested tradition of embellishment. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Twenty years after heading west to find his fortunes a man returns to meet a long lost friend. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I have always loved the work of Lewis Carroll. In fact, Litreading began with my rendition of Carroll’s nonsense poem Jabberwocky. His only foray into shorter works came in the form of poetry, much of which found its way into his Alice books.This piece was written a bit differently earlier and changed when added to the book, “Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass.”This nonsense verse is said to be a parody of a poem by Wordsworth, Resolution and Independence.Lewis Carroll was the pen name and alter ego of Charles Dodgeson, a well off Englishman in the mid 19th Century. Although not a particularly prolific author – he had myriad passions – Carroll remains of the most popular writers of all time. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Grief part of the human condition and we cope with it varies from person to person. When two old men discuss the loss of family members several years after World War I, it is a fly that help illustrate both life’s constant struggles and fragility.The Fly is considered one of Catherine Mansfield’s greatest works because it is personal. Mansfield lost her brother in a training demonstration during World War I.One of the great modernist writers of the early 20th century, Mansfield was both a contemporary and a friend of two other great authors of that period, D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Wolff. Her works are less well known as her career was cut short by terminal tuberculosis at the age of 34. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Loneliness is painful enough under normal circumstances, but social rejection in the face of a personal crisis can be devastating. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is more a satirical essay than an actual short story, but it makes me smile. The first telephone was demonstrated at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. By 1880, many wealthier families were using the new communication device regularly and one of the 19th century’s best known authors and satirists observed some anecdotal differences in the way men and women communicate.Samuel Clemens better known as Mark Twain is one of the most famous American authors of all time. This story was penned 4 years after his success with Tom Sawyer and about 5 years before he completed Huckleberry Finn. In 1884 he formed his own publishing company which went on to posthumously publish the best-selling memoirs of President Ulysses S. Grant. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are complex creatures and grow more so with time. Every relationship adds or subtracts from who we are. No relationship is more life changing than marriage and for a woman thrice married in pre-suffrage America the stigma of mutual divorce seems insurmountable until her third husband’s comes to a startling revelation.Best known for her novels, Edith Wharton was a prolific writer of short stories. Growing up among New York’s upper class, she created realistic portrayals of America’s Gilded Age pseudo aristocracy. In 1921, she became the the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Literature for her book, The Age of Innocence. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the 19th Century particularly, good boys are supposed to enjoy the fruits of the righteousness, and bad boys were destined for eternal damnation, at least according to Sunday School books, but according to Mark Twain, life often contradicted expectation. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pride does seem to go before a fall… In this very short story a young man’s life unravels thanks to a small vanity-induced dissimulation. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This special short, short story centers on a different kind of haunting, not from without, but from within. The darkness that comes from a profound loneliness that quietly haunts the souls of many. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Happiness has always been elusive, usually found in unexpected places and, often, in the wake of the worst life eventsIn this heart-warming story, an affluent couple discovers what is truly important in life in the wake of both a fiscal and physical tragedy.Kathleen Norris was, for a time, the highest paid female writer in early 20th-century America. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Virginia Wolff had a talent for taking mundane observations and weaving them into enchanting tales. Something a normal as watching two men on an ordinary a day at the beach became an impassioned and poignant story in her hands.Born to an upstanding and literary Victorian family, Virginia Wolff suffered from serious psychological issues which may have been part of the genius behind her introspective and emotional powerful writing. She and her husband founded the famous British publishing house Hogarth Press in 1917. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What should we do, when should we do it, and whose direction should we take? Those three questions have plagued humanity throughout time. Where can the answers be found or are they unanswerable? If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is truth? How does our perception color the facts as we observe them. Those differences how we see the world complicates this Japanese murder investigation in this renowned short story.This profound modernist fable has echoed for almost a century. Also called "In a Bamboo Grove," this 1929 short story was inspiration for the critically acclaimed 1950 Japanese film, "Rashomon." If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Would it be better to start life as an old man and end it as an infant? That was the question posed by Mark Twain that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald to write his short story, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People dream of success. Those ambitions can often be prodigious. Rarely, however, do our future business strategies develop as quickly as do those in this story that encapsulates the economic concerns of the early 20th Century.For a full-time banker and part-time author Ellis Parker Butler was prolific writing more than 2,000 stories that were published in well over 200 magazines in the early 20th Century. His most famous story is "Pigs is Pigs" which a narrated in 2019. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Prepare to be moved by one of the most unusual short stories ever written, which tells a chilling tale of the simple life and complex death of a slave-owning planter in Union-occupied Alabama during the Civil War. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This classic Mark Twain tale is a witty commentary on poverty and wealth. There is much of Twain’s personal circumstance reflected in the story, as Twain had himself recently gone from riches to bankruptcy. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Falling in love is one of humanities most common events and biggest mysteries. What is it that ignites one person's passion for another. This poignant tale of surprisingly falling for someone was penned by the first woman playwright to win a Pulitzer Prize.A brilliant author author of novels, short stories and plays, Zona Gale was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prie for Drama for the stage adaptation of her novel, Miss Lulu Bett. She sold her first story at age 16 for $3. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A long-running feud leads two men to face each other and the ravages of nature in this powerful classic story by one the best short story authors of all time.One of listeners most requested authors is Saki, the pen name of British write H.H. Munro. His incredible short stories run the gamut from biting satire to shockingly macabre.At age 43, Munro insisted on enlisting as a mere trooper to fight for the British in World War One and was killed by a German sniper in 1916.If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I am a big fan of dogs and am fascinated with their non-verbal communication skills. I also enjoy dog stories and the writing of O. Henry, so what could be better to end season two of Litreading than a dog story written by O. Henry. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We all have our particular foibles and phobias. Today’s humorous short story focuses on one whose greatest fear is of banks. Would that be ripiaphobia? If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Life can deal any of us some terrible blows. In this semi-auto biographical tale we explore the life of a once wealthy merchant, Jimmy Rose If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here is a wonderfully nostalgic tale of a time when boys could enjoy a taste of freedom, share ideas, and let’s their imaginations run wild, before the responsibilities of life overrode such fancies. You're invited to get lost at the foot of "The Enchanted Bluff."Willa Cather published "The Enchanted Bluff" in "Harper's Magazine" in 1909 during a period when her writing skills were blossoming in stories about her experiences living on the Nebraska prairie. Her efforts culminated in a Pulitzer Prize for her book, "One of Ours." Her work was loved by some of the best authors of her day. In fact, after he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Sinclair Lewis stated that the prize should have gone to Willa Cather. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the 19th century, the United States was as diverse from region to region as were the country’s of Europe, except for the fact that we spoke some semblance of the same language. However, the language divide between proper Easern American English and that of the the inhabitants of the West could, at times be vast.Samuel Clemens was born in Florida in 1835, but it wasn’t until 27 years later that his alter ego, Mark Twain, came into being in Carson City, Nevada. He credited the many extreme characters of Nevada’s early mining days with jump starting his literary career. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the early 19th century country a farmer is murdered in his home. While investigated, local authorities task a local women with gathering a few things for the wife who was arrested for the crime. Susan Glaspell wrote a one-act play which she adapted into "A Jury of Her Peers” It is loosely based on a murder covered while working as a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News. 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.comIf you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During these stressful times, forced into close quarters with those we love. we may find ourselves growing angry when a softer approach tends to me far more effective as is illustrated in this story.Mary Roberts Rinehart is yet another fine example of a talented early 20th Century authors. Known as The American Agatha Christie, she is best known for her mystery stories. A character in her 1920 play “The Bat” was the inspiration for Bob Kane’s comic book character “Batman.” If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Money has the power to take us away, if only temporarily, from the due routines of life. However, there is always a price to pay for our fiscal flights of fancy and real life eventually hoists its humdrum head again. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Charles Dickens was a constant observer of the plight of his fellows and critical of the divisions between humanity’s strata. In this deep and poignant parable of mankind’s need to be recognized by others he arrives at the conclusion that in the end, despite our apparent differences, we are all same.Dickens wrote "Nobody’s Story" to honor those who toil in anonymity and suffer quietly. It was originally published in 1853 as part of a Volume of Christmas stories, but felt more appropriate for today. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What began as a street brawl on a winter evening in Boston, became one the biggest sparks to help ignite the American revolution. 250 years ago, on March 5th 1770, anger over the British housing troops among civilians in Massachusetts boiled over into what the British called the Incident on King Street but was referred to my early Americans as "The Boston Massacre."To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the seminal event in early American history, we present Nathaniel Hawthorne's unique narrative account of this fascinating tale. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A special Father's Day episode of Litreading If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the mind behind "Alice in Wonderland" comes one of the best examples of nonsense poetry. Jabberwocky tells the tale of a young knight who slays a mythical beast. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What must life have been like in the Garden of Eden for the first man, Adam, and that new creature who suddenly appeared in his idyllic life? Well, left to the imagination of Mark Twain, the story takes a fanciful and funny early 20th-century take on Genesis.Extracts from Adam’s Diary was written in 1904, the final decade of Samuel Clemens's (aka Mark Twain’s) life, and was published as a short book. The character of Adam is obviously based on Twain himself, and Eve was his wife Lily. Shortly after writing this story, Lily died. This may have led to Twain penning “The Diary of Eve,” which was first published in 1905. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Imagine waking up in a strange and wonderful place with no memory and no one to guide you. Your world is filled with strange creatures and incredible beauty along with one enigmatic creature who looks similar to you but is still quite different. Here is the sequel to “Extracts from Adam’s Diary.”When Mark Twain (whose real name was Samuel Clemens) wrote “Eve’s Diary” he was in his 80s and had enjoyed and long career as an author, speaker, and publisher. Two years before its publication, Twain had penned “Extracts from Adam’s Diary” (also available on Litreading). Shortly thereafter his wife of 34 years, Olivia (Lily) died. While he never explicitly said as much, many believe this to be his final love letter to her. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book!https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonaldor click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.