Starbucks is adding audiobooks to its menu

Starbucks Corp. will market “The Velveteen Rabbit” and “The Night Before Christmas” audiobooks under an agreement with Random House Inc. as the world’s largest coffee chain tries to expand its entertainment sales.

Read by actress Meryl Streep, the two audiobooks will include a CD and an illustrated storybook and will cost $15.95, said Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment. This is the first time Starbucks has offered audiobooks.

Starbucks is adding more CDs, DVDs and movie soundtracks as it tries to expand sales beyond coffee. The company is selling a DVD by children’s singer Laurie Berkner, and in April it started promoting the Lionsgate movie “Akeelah and the Bee” with spelling quizzes on coffee-cup sleeves and in-store advertisements in exchange for part of the film’s profit.

Starbucks will share in the profit of the two audiobooks in exchange for selling and promoting them, Lombard said, without being more specific.

The two audiobooks will be sold exclusively at Starbucks’ 5,100 company-owned U.S. stores for four months before being available at other retailers. “The Velveteen Rabbit” will be released on Aug. 29 and “The Night Before Christmas” on Nov. 6.

The audiobooks are part of a series called Rabbit Ears that includes such children’s classics as “Thumbelina” and “Rip Van Winkle.” The recordings were made during the 1980s by actors including Anjelica Huston and Nicolas Cage, said Madeline McIntosh, senior vice president and publisher of Random House Audio, a unit of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann.

Most of the titles haven’t been distributed for a decade.

“Our hope is for the millions of Starbucks customers [to be] reintroduced to ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ and ‘The Night Before Christmas,’ and for them to introduce their children to them,” McIntosh said in an interview.