I'd like to give people some time to see this post and to give some feedback on how they're feeling about the format, so we won't begin for at least a day or two. It's likely that others are in the same boat as Meriadoc and are waiting for their copies to arrive. Another reason I think breaking up the pages is so that there's more opportunity for participants to let us know if more time is needed, etc. If we could set the starting date for Sunday, August 11th, I think that would be great. I was thinking a week for Part 1, but it seems already that more time might be needed to let everyone read it and be ready to participate. I think once we see how that goes, it'll be easier to come up with a workable structure for the rest of the reading and discussion.