Far, far away, in the town of Grenoble, the capital of the French Alps, three-foot tall machines dispense short stories for your reading leisure... for free.

Yes—it’s real life. Under the direction of Green Party mayor Eric Piolle, the Grenoble town council has partnered with the founders of Short Edition, a publishing company, to bring back the pleasures of literature to a culture of smartphone-starers, reports Konbini.

“The idea came to us in front of a vending machine containing chocolate bars and drinks,” said Christophe Sibieude, cofounder and head of Short Edition, to Agence-France Presse. “We said to ourselves that we could do the same thing with good quality popular literature to occupy these little unproductive moments.”

At the screen-less, orange and black machines, you can select stories by the estimated length of time you’ll be killing time; the “three minute” format, for example, prints out a story on an eight-centimeter by sixty-centimeter slip of paper.

Eight of these handy machines will appear throughout the town, including the town hall, tourist office, libraries, and social centers.

Photo credit: AFP