Santa brought me an iPod Shuffle 4g, it took a while to figure out how to use it from Linux (found the solution at
https://github.com/nims11/IPod-Shuffle-4g), but now it seems to work well with mp3 audiobooks from my local library. I only expect to listen to audiobooks when there is no possible way to read an ebook (when cycling mainly), so being able to navigate by voice menu is a useful feature.