Velveteen Rabbit audiobook with extra foam

In 1984 the already Academy Award-winning Meryl Streep read Margery Williams's The Velveteen Rabbit for an audiobook company called Rabbit Ears, with music by George Winston.

This week Random House and Starbucks issued a press release announcing that that book-audiobook package will make a "long-awaited return-to-market," with a four-month exclusive at Starbucks coffee shops in the U.S. and at Starbucks's music website.

Publishers Weekly's email newsletter describes this audiobook as part of the "lauded and long-out-of-print Rabbit Ears Collection of celebrity-narrated recordings," to be brought back at last through Random House's Listening Library.

In fact, there was a 20th-anniversary rerelease of Rabbit Ears's Rabbit less than three years ago. Sure, it came from a Japanese label and has a correspondingly high price tag, but this is a global webbed economy. What we call "not available on the market" increasingly means "not available at a price I think is reasonable." Starbucks and Random House know that as well as anybody.