Ear To Ear

First off, a huge THANK YOU! to everyone for the kind words left here and on Twitter about my good news. Having friends share in my excitement just makes everything that much better!

Now the party's over and it's time to get back to work. In the spare minutes of my day, not only am I trying to squeeze in my own writing and the (admittedly fun) task of critiquing for my CPs, but I've also set up a kind of ridiculous reading challenge for myself. In general, my book-buying rules are: cookbooks in book form, fiction in e-form. I've seen some of your pictures of overflowing bookshelves rooms, and I would be in the same boat if I didn't buy the majority of my reading as e-books. The only area I break this rule is for middle grade, because I when I'm done with those books I like to send them to my nephews.

Here is my current stack of unread middle grade:

Three of these I bought just last week in a fit of "I'll just make time!" delusion.

The challenge I'm facing is that I'm flying to Michigan in mid-September to visit my parents, and my brother is bringing his family to visit too. If I can read all these books by then, I can bring them with me and avoid shipping them. More importantly, I'll get to talk with my nephews about the books and tell them which ones were my favorites and ask what they've read lately. Right now they really love to read, and I'd like to keep encouraging that.

What do you think, can I read these six middle grade books in 22 days? I'm a fast reader so this sounds ridiculously doable to me, but the determining factor is free time, of which I have very little. How much time are you able to set aside for reading?