If your goal is to provide access to audiobooks and similar text, I'd strongly suggest not using a smartphone or tablet. Smooth flat glass without tactile feedback, advertising-focused producer intent, and frequently-changing UI/UX are all the antithesis of high usability for the visually-disabled and elderly.

Android is not particularly good for the visually or otherwise disabled, in part because there's simply so much variance amongst devices and vendors. I'm not sure that iOS is particularly better but it is at least far more consistent.

I'd strongly suggest looking into physical players. One of the best in the US (presuming from your "in town for the holidays" remark) is the US Library of Congress National Library Service for the Blind and Print-Disabled:

<https://www.loc.gov/nls/>

In particular this piece of shinay kit:

<https://www.loc.gov/nls/services-and-resources/equipment-for...>

That's the NLS Talking Book Player. What you'll note is that it has large, physically-differentiated, Braille-labeled buttons. Less obvious are other features:

- Physical headphone jack.

- Cartridge and USB slots. The player will support up to ~16 GB USB sticks, which can hold well over 100 books at a time.

- An integrated, audio, information and help guide which will walk the user through all the features and functions, as well as give current player information (book position, book title, elapsed, remaining, total time, power/battery status).

- "Bookshelf mode" permitting navigation through multi-book cartridges and USB sticks.

- Excellent and detailed printed documentation including a user manual (<https://www.loc.gov/nls/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Digital-T...>) and service manual (https://www.loc.gov/nls/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Digital-T...).

What that will play are the 300,000+ items in the National Library Service's BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download) collection: <https://www.loc.gov/nls/services-and-resources/catalog-and-b...>. That includes recent and classic publications, magazines, fiction, nonfiction, cookbooks, and more.

BARD will send selections unprompted, though these tend to be highly arbitrary. I strongly recommend directly requesting materials directly through the NLS Catalog: <https://nlscatalog.loc.gov/>

Price is free, to any US resident or citizen with a qualifying temporary or permanent reading disability as certified by a qualifying authority: <https://www.loc.gov/nls/how-to-enroll/apply-for-nls-services...>

Another option is, again, a dedicated audio playback device with physical buttons. I've just learned that boom-boxes are still A Thing, and that dedicated MP3 / audio players exist. From Best Buy:

Boom Boxes (and related devices): <https://www.bestbuy.com/site/docks-radios-boomboxes/boomboxe...>

"MP3 Players": <https://www.bestbuy.com/site/audio/mp3-players/abcat0201010....>

(Most will of course play from many available audio formats.)

Other than that ...

- There are dedicated Internet Radio devices which can play from any streaming broadcast worldwide.

- I'm not aware of dedicated podcast player devices, though that would also be of interest. I will strongly recommend podcasts as another form of information and entertainment. There are many which cover short stories, either contemporary or classical, inclusing "Selected Shorts" (https://symphonyspace.org/selected-shorts), a whole slew of short-story collections from Librivox (e.g., <https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/short-story-collection...> ... there are over 40 collections with 10--20 stories each), and "1001 Classic Short Stories and Tales" <https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1001-classic-short-sto...>.

- Libravox also has iOS and Android apps: <https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1001-classic-short-sto...> <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paid.libri...>

And since the context is phones, I'd also strongly recommend at least one physical, large-button, telephone within the house.