I'm not familiar with MS book reader, but I'm going to make an assumption and say that there is a Linux equivalent which is better any way. Okular, maybe?
Well, the .lit format seems proprietary, so you need to get their software. And I'm already too old to be purist/zealot. I use iTunes even though I'm not happy there isn't flac support - i just use apple lossless and if i can ever switch to flac i will.