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 w...
Apr 21, 2026•12 min
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 m...
Apr 14, 2026•16 min
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...
Apr 07, 2026•15 min
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 ...
Mar 31, 2026•17 min
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 eve...
Mar 17, 2026•32 min
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 mo...
Mar 10, 2026•9 min
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 stori...
Mar 03, 2026•11 min
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...
Feb 24, 2026•20 min
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 T...
Feb 17, 2026•14 min
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 mistak...
Feb 10, 2026•46 min
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.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 ...
Feb 03, 2026•23 min
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, am...
Jan 27, 2026•11 min
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, sta...
Jan 16, 2026•19 min
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 psychol...
Jan 13, 2026•19 min
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 po...
Jan 07, 2026•36 min
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....
Jan 01, 2026•59 sec
Without individual compassion, the good, old days were rarely good for orphaned or disabled children. 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....
Nov 20, 2025•18 min
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 ...
Nov 19, 2025•18 min
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 b...
Nov 18, 2025•19 min
Not all dragons are fire breathing monsters bent on destruction. 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.
Nov 13, 2025•1 hr 3 min
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 10...
Nov 12, 2025•24 min
Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” is one of the most celebrated short stories ever written — a masterclass in subtext, restraint, and emotional tension. Set at a train station in Spain, it captures a quiet conversation between two lovers waiting for a train — a moment in which everything that matters lies between the lines. Presented by Litreading , part of Short Storyverses — where classic and original tales are read with depth and heart. We are expanding our universe of short sto...
Nov 11, 2025•12 min
Saki's recurring character, Clovis takes on an overly proud mother 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.
Nov 06, 2025•8 min
Mark Twain's first popular story of a hardcore gambler in a mining camp during the Gold Rush. 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.
Nov 05, 2025•15 min
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...
Nov 04, 2025•17 min
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 ...
Oct 20, 2025•48 min
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...
Oct 16, 2025•1 hr 19 min
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...
Sep 30, 2025•5 min
How can we tell the difference between benevolence and predation? 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.
Sep 29, 2025•17 min
What happens when hate overwhelms love? 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.
Sep 28, 2025•13 min
