diff --git a/Doc/library/asyncore.rst b/Doc/library/asyncore.rst
--- a/Doc/library/asyncore.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/asyncore.rst
@@ -209,6 +209,8 @@
 
       Read at most *buffer_size* bytes from the socket's remote end-point.  An
       empty string implies that the channel has been closed from the other end.
+      Note that *recv* may raise OSError with EWOULDBLOCK or EAGAIN, even
+      though select has reported the socket ready for reading.
 
 
    .. method:: listen(backlog)
diff --git a/Lib/asynchat.py b/Lib/asynchat.py
--- a/Lib/asynchat.py
+++ b/Lib/asynchat.py
@@ -48,7 +48,9 @@
 import socket
 import asyncore
 from collections import deque
+from errno import EWOULDBLOCK, EAGAIN
 
+_RETRY = frozenset((EWOULDBLOCK, EAGAIN))
 
 class async_chat (asyncore.dispatcher):
     """This is an abstract class.  You must derive from this class, and add
@@ -115,7 +117,8 @@
         try:
             data = self.recv (self.ac_in_buffer_size)
         except OSError as why:
-            self.handle_error()
+            if why.args[0] not in _RETRY:
+                self.handle_error()
             return
 
         if isinstance(data, str) and self.use_encoding: