Lol, I would need more experience myself to do that!
If you want some simpler, but still good fun, ideas:
Buy a really cheap MP3 player from the evilbay, take it apart and build it into a small box with your amplifier (better yet, make a stereo amp) and speaker and some nicer control buttons.
Get an old computer CD-ROM drive that has a 'play' button on the front as well as eject, connect it to a power supply and connect your amplifier (again stereo would be nice) to the CD-ROM's audio output. I used such a set up for a few years for playing my CD's. No PC required! You could add that to the above MP3 player (but the CD-ROM will only play normal audio CD's of course). A more advanced version of this uses a Micrchip PIC to control the CD-ROM and allow more flexibility than just 'play'.
Or, if you are into PC stuff, the TI PCM270x integrated circuits that FvM mentioned are a very easy way to make your own USB-connected sound 'card' for your PC, along with your amp again. A little more involved than the LM386 wiring, and some fine soldering of the chip itself, but it really is not hard to do. Windows even recognizes it without needing to load a driver.
Whatever, we are always here to offer help.