Has everyone known about these except me? (Playaway audio books)

I did a solo drive yesterday -- two and a half hours down to southern Indiana and two and a half hours back -- and I knew before I left that I needed something to listen to. I know that it makes me out to be some kind of freak to admit this, but I hate listening to music in the car. I could play nothing but Aerosmith, Def Leppard and the Beatles on a long drive and all it would do is put me right to sleep. I have to have words.

So I went to our public library's website and looked up a book I'd been wanting to read but couldn't because the library owns only one copy and some dumb patron lost it. Do they maybe have it on audio book? I wondered. It turned out that the answer was yes, it's just that it wasn't on CD. It was preloaded onto this handy little device called a Playaway.

I hope I'm not the only dope out there who had never heard of a Playaway until the nice clerk at the public library put it into my hand. If you haven't heard of them either, click here for a description of how they work and click here for a list of titles. You can see the unit itself, front and back, in the pictures up there. It's a little smaller than an iPhone and the library in my city requests that patrons provide their own ear buds and triple-A battery. I got my copy, I suppose you could call it, of Charlaine Harris's Dead Until Dark -- and yes, I know it's hardly highbrow literature but I read a lot of Shakespeare and everyone needs a break sometimes, so shut up -- and deeply enjoyed my drive.

I noticed at the Playaway store that these little babies cost anywhere from around $34.99 to $104.00 each, so this definitely isn't something I'd ever buy for myself, but they're nifty little things and I've enjoyed using it today, too, while doing busy work around the house. Fun! I am a Playaway fan.