Tired of reading textbooks? Want a good book to read but don’t want to treck through the snow to the library? Mid-winter break is the perfect time to reclaim your love of reading by diving into the perfect book. Here are the Echo’s top five digital books to pick up during break.
1. A Pledge of Silence By: Flora J Solomon - Historical Fiction
With rumors of an upcoming war, Margie Bauer signs up for the Nurse Corp and is soon assigned to Manila, an island near the Philippines. Months after being assigned to her dream job, Manila is soon taken over in December of 1941. As a result, the Army flees to the Bataan peninsula where Margie works in a hospital in the catacombs. But she is soon captured and taken to a Japanese Internment Camp. For three years Margie must fight for her life in Santo Tomas until she can be released from her captors.
2. The Handmaids Tale By: Margret Atawood - Satire
When the population hits critical mass, the Republic of Gilead (once the United States) starts creating a new classist order. Women able to produce children are taken into servitude of the upper class and forced to have children for them. For these Handmaids, life is a strict set of rules, and harsh punishments for those who do not follow them. Offred, a handmaid whose four-year old daughter was taken away in the beginning of the new puritanical, must learn her place in the new society while desperately seeking information on her lost child, an attempt which could prove fatal for her.
3. Morgue Drawer 4 by Jutta Profijt - Mystery
Dr. Martin Gἄnswein works as a corner in Cologne, Germany. One day mid-autopsy,the ghost of the recently deceased car thief, Pascha, begins talking with him. Dr. Martin soon questions his sanity as he must choose whether to help Pascha solve his own murder, in hopes of getting some peace and quiet back in his life. As Dr. Martin is the only person which Pascha can communicate with, he agrees to help the ghost but soon finds himself in some interesting situations -- including a visit to Germany’s infamous red light district and into the dark world of car smuggling.
4. The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland By: Rebeka Crane - Contemprary Fiction
Self-described as a Manic-Depressive, Bipolar, and Anorexic sixteen-year-old, Zander Osburne is sent to Camp Padua for at risk teens in the “middle of nowhere”, Michigan for the summer. While there, Zander forms an unusual bond with Grover Cleveland, a young boy who expects to be schizophrenic one day, and pathological liar, Bek. Amongst therapy and campfires they try to find themselves through slowing revealing the truth not only to themselves but their fellow campers. However, when tragedy strikes Zander learns more about herself than in the two months preceding, and she must work through the pain in order to be able to tell Grover how she feels.
5. Life and Other Near-Death Experiences By: Camille Pagan - Romance
The same day her husband leaves her, optimist Libby Miller is given life altering news from her doctor, shattering her life forever. Her life now in ruins, Libby decides to abandon Chicago for the warm tropical beaches of the Caribbean. In a desperate attempt to forget her fate, Libby is determined to enjoy the time she has left. While she's there she falls in love with a local man named Shiloh, who shares similar experiences to her own, further pointing out to Libby that she cannot run from her problems. She is soon faced with the choice to stay in paradise or to go back to the states and receive treatment.
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