Organic chemistry, you might feel overwhelmed by the number of compounds, anmes, reactions, and mechanisms that confront you. You might even wonder whether you can learn all this material in a single year. The most important function of a textbook is to organize the material to show that most of organic chemistry consists of a few basic principles and many extensions and applications of these principles.
Relatively little memorization is required if you grasp the major concepts and develop flexibility in applying those concepts. Frankly, I have a poor memory, and I hate memorizing lists of information. I don's remember the specifies of most of the reactions and mechanisms in this book, but I can work them out by remembering a few basic principles, such as "alcohol dehydrations usually go by E1 mechanisms."
1. Introduction and Review
2. Stucture and Properties of Organic Molecules
3. Stucture and Stereochemistry of Alkanes
4. The Study of Chemical Reactions
5. Stereochemistry
6. Alkyl Halides: Nucleophilic Substitution and Elimination
7. Structure and Synthesis of Alkenes
8. Reactions of Alkenes
9. Alkynes
10. Structure and Synthesis of Alcohols
etc.