There's been a lot of chatter about what the shuffle does and does not do. Many of the assumptions out there are wrong. Here are a few (btw, I learned all this by reading the support pages).

The shuffle and audiobooks: 1. Yes, even the 512 is large enough to hold more than a few books. Books tend to be encoded at a lower bit rate. 2. Yes you can bookmark, at least on files from the iTMS and Audible. The shuffle marks your place if you pause, stop, skip to another file. This mark can also be adjusted in iTunes (though you can only have one bookmark per file). Also worth mentioning, if you turn off the shuffle, it resumes at the same spot in the song/book.

Fast-forward and Rewind: Hold down the next or previous button to ff or rw through the track.

Battery indicator: It's on the back. Green, yellow, red.

Charging: Needs to happen on a powered USB port. Don't know if your port is powered? Lick it (kidding). Ports directly on the CPU or on a powered USB hub will charge the shuffle. You don't have to buy Apples dock. Any USB extension cord should work.

Other Secrets: The flash partition is MS-DOS FAT formatted. Holding the play/pause button for 3 seconds puts the unit on hold (to prevent accidental button presses). Comes with 2 caps: one on lanyard. Estimates indicate the 512 can be filled via USB in about 5 minutes.

Always make educated purchases (unless the guy at the Genius Bar says otherwise).