Book 73:Bad Billy by Jimmy Pudge

This is more of a short story, but it was pretty intense.  Billy is a messed up kid who ends up being raised in horrible conditions.  One day he breaks free from his home and goes on a rampage.  Then all kinds of bad stuff happens.  It's almost like the author had too many ideas in his head, so he put everything into this story.  It is a horror story so it does have some gore (well, a lot), but I really enjoyed it.

Book 72: To Ride Pegasus by Anne McCaffrey

This is a book of 4 stories all centered around the premise that certain people have psionic skills or Talents.  There are various talents and they can be measured and discovered by scientific means.  The books are about about what would happen then when these things were proven beyond a doubt to exist.  How would regular people react?  How would things like seeing visions that will come true effect the real world?  Can accidents be prevented if someone gets a brief flash a few hours before it will occur?  What if they don't stop the accident?  Is the person with the vision accountable for not preventing it then?

Apparently these stories have a couple of follow up books to form the Talents trilogy and somehow tie into the Tower and Hive series.  I haven't read any of those, but maybe someday.  You can really feel the late 60's sci-fi vibes while reading these books.  That can be cool, but it's not a hook for me here.  Actually, the only reason  I read this was because I was trying to find a book I remember from when I was young.  It involved people with psionic abilities like these folks.  There was a man and he showed his powers to a boy by killing some crows by thinking them dead.  I thought it was by McCaffrey and this seemed like the logical place where that scene would have happened, but it wasn't in this book.  Ah well, I'll find it someday.   

Book 71: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

I don't read a ton of non-fiction, but one day I was doing some wikipedia surfing and I stumbled across this page.  I rushed around to find this book and devoured it.  It's about a expedition to climb Mt. Everest in 1996 where a number of people got caught in a freak storm just as they were reaching the summit.  A terrible tragedy makes for a very engrossing book.  I have no real interest in mountaineering or climbing or whatever the proper terminology is, but the human-side of this whole mess is pretty captivating.

Book 70: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

I enjoyed this book, but it took me forever to finish it.  I kept finding break points and then I would put it down for a few weeks, but once I opened it again, I would read pretty steadily for a few days until I got to another good stopping point. Man finds a way to go back in time and is tasked with stopping the Kennedy assassination. Probably not surprising, but I really enjoyed the characters in this book, and actually preferred the romantic plot to the sci-fi one.  Definitely recommended.

Book 69.5: Second Son by Lee Child

A short Jack Reacher story.  It's set when Reacher is young and his family gets stationed in Japan.  He has to solve a couple of mysteries as well as prove to the other Army brats that he isn't someone to mess around with.

Book 69: Worth Dying For by Lee Child

Jack Reacher book 16 or so.  Jack stumbles onto a town where one family pretty much monopolizes everything.  He encounters a case of spousal abuse, gets involved and the mystery starts from there.  The creepy family has a creepy past and they do some creepy stuff.  Jack gets tangled up in it all and has to fix the problems because he's just that kind of a guy.  Typical, but man, I love these things.

Book 68: Hell House by Richard Matheson

This is probably my favorite haunted house book.  Some old dude pays a noted paranormal investigator to stay at the most famous haunted house in the country.  The investigator is your typical scientific skeptic who thinks it can all be explained away by science, not ghosts.  He brings along his wife who is pretty sheltered, a famous psychic lady, and another psychic who, when he was a boy was the only survivor of a previous attempt to study the house.  They get into your typical haunted house type of stuff where they learn about the history and who is haunting the house.  Some make it out and some don't.  Nothing earth shattering, but it's a good solid story by a good writer.