"Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies"For those of you that like to be organized and keep on schedule I have broken this book down into sections. At 457 pages this is our largest book to date, so it is important to plan ahead to be sure to finish by the end of the month and our scheduled chat where Jared Diamond will be our guest. Total Pages: 457 Total days per month: 30 Daily reading: estimated 16 pages per day - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To keep on track and be completed by September 30, 2002 here is a schedule. I'll give some checkpoints and dates. If you have read up to the page/chapter listed by the corresponding date you are doing well.Today is Sept. 5 so we will start from here. 9-05-02 (Thursday) Part 1 - "From Eden to Camjamarca"You should have read up to page 81 by the end of today. 9-08-02 (Sunday) Part 2 - "The Rise And Spread of Food Production"You should have read up to page 130 by the end of today.You should just be starting Chapter 8: "Apples or Indians" 9-12-02 (Thursday) Part 2 - "The Rise And Spread of Food Production"You should have read up to page 191 by the end of today.You should be done with all of Section 2 at this point. 9-15-02 (Sunday) Part 3 - "From Food To Guns, Germs And Steel"By the end of the day today you will want to have completed readingup to page 238, or the end of Chapter 12: "Blueprints and Borrowed Letters." 9-18-02 (Wednesday) Part 3 - "From Food To Guns, Germs And Steel"To be on track you should have completed up to page 292,or the end of Section 3, by the end of the day today. Start Section 4. 9-22-02 (Sunday) Part 4 - "Around The World in Five Chapters"You'll want to have read up to around page 353 by the end of today.This will have you starting Chapter 18: "Hemispheres Colliding" tomorrow. 9-25-02 (Wednesday) Part 4 - "Around The World in Five Chapters"By tonight you will be done with the book...at least the main part of the book.You will have completed Chapter 19: "How Africa Became Black"There is some more to read and I think you'll want to complete the Epilogue. 9-27-02 (Friday) "Epilogue"You will want to have read up to page 427 by tonight, which would completethe Epilogue, entitled, "The Future of Human History As A Science."At this point you might want to read the "Further Readings" section and explore some of Professor Diamonds suggested readings. There are about 30 pages of suggestions. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I created this schedule because with a book of this size it is easy to fall behind and never complete the reading by the end of the month. The more people that have read the entire book the better our chat will be with Professor Diamond. So keep on track if you can and post periodically as you have insights and opinions about what you are reading. Chris O'Connor Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 10/30/05 3:36 pm

If you copy and paste the above schedule into a Word doc and print it out it makes a great bookmark. You can then keep on schedule as you read very easily. I'm hoping some of you will immediately begin getting into the discussion thread I just started in this forum as this book has way too much content to simply discuss it in one brief chat session.Chris Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 10/30/05 3:36 pm