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Note: The following is purely my opinion of what everyone should, at a minimum, should have read.
1) Pathfinder Core Rulebook
2) The Guide to Pathfinder society Organized Play (currently v4.3, v5.0 expected early August, free)
3) Pathfinder Society Field Guide (considered core to PFS, contains some RP info and some splat material for the Pathfinder Society)
4) Seekers of Secrets (formerly core to PFS, contains quite a bit of RP info and some splat material, for PFS)
5) Any other book you are using material from in your PC build(s).
6) Various Golarion RP books. Most have at least some splat, as well as RP info for Golarion.
GMs should be familiar with at least the Bestiary, especially the monster types and traits section, and the sections on what monster abilities do, and what the monster feats are.
Anyone interested in Golarion lore, in general, might want to read the novels published as Pathfinder Tales.
GMs should always read the background section for the scenario they are going to be running, and see if they can figure out ways to get any of the non-classified background into their players' hands. Some of it should be available from the BBEG's mooks in earlier encounters, as the PCs work their way up to the final confrontation, but some of it may not be as available, but can increase immersion, if some way to let the players know about it can be figured out.
Some of the background should be included during the pre-game discussion, like the country of Rahadoum having outlawed Divine casting and classes, so that Clerics, Paladins, Inquisitors and Oracles know what they might be confronting if they are played during the Heresy of Man trilogy, which is acknowledged as happening in Rahadoum.
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Did you notice the thread I started about a month ago asking who has actually read the Core Rulebook? Majority answer was that most people haven't read it from cover to cover. I'm working on it, but I'm only up to chapter 9 so far.
When I started playing in Society, I had started reading the Core Rulebook, but didn't get past the chapters on races and classes, and skimmed the other stuff I needed to create a character. I had also read the player sections of the Guide to Organized Play, and asked a few questions here on the forums. Many of the other books Kinevon references, I hadn't even heard of, let alone read. And it didn't hurt at all.
As a GM, the bare minimum is that you need to know how to play the game (familiarity with the key points of the Core Rulebook, but you don't have to read it cover to cover), the Guide to Organized Play, and the specific adventure. Also reading stuff like the Inner Sea World Guide section on whatever country the adventure takes place in will let you bring some context to the area, but in Society play, especially at conventions, there really isn't that much time for extra fluff.
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Reading the rulebook cover-to-cover isn't necessary. F'rinstance, there's no need to read the higher-level spells in the Core Rulebook to GM PFS -- they're never going to come up due to the level 13 level cap. (I have GMed 8 sessions myself so far, all of them Tier 1 or Subtier 1-2. I anticipate similar for some time in the future. It's probably gonna be a while before I even hit third level spells in PFS...!)
(And, honestly, in general I treat the spell chapter as reference material. I read the ones I need to know about when I need to know about them.)
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Pathfinder Society games are supposed to go for no longer than 5 hours. Quite a few go for 4, and most conventions have 4 hour slots (thus dictating that the Pathfinder Society run there go for 4 max). Id aim for 5 personally if you are playing at home. Mine generally go to full time.
Take a Look at the First Steps series of scenarios (3 in all). They provide a basic introduction to Pathfinder society. You can find them either through the product search or via the product links in the Pathfinder Section. They are also free.
Season 1 is a good place to start. I started running Season 0 first. We had a bunch of new players join locally and I wanted to learn the lore of the setting while exposing them to the society. As Season 0 was created on the 3.5 ruleset things dont always mesh well, but generally there is a lot of story back there. You might also find the encounters easier than one would expect. I found this let players sink into their characters and build on them and then I started running other season material when I thought they could handle it better.
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I've run a few Season 0 scenarios, and they translate without too much trouble. (There's even at least one (Mists of Mwangi) that the Paizo guys already translated to PFS.) I haven't looked at all of the Season 0 boons, but the ones that I've seen (i.e. from the scenarios I've run), they're just fine.
So much fun. The dwarf fighter, who did not fall to the mist curse, brought an alchemical grenade and threw it into the room with all the undead. The elf wizard did fall to the mist curse, was roleplaying in depth, thought "oooh, sparkly!", and went to pick it up while the fuse was still going....
Describing Pathfinder as "3.75" really does make sense. If you read some of the 10th anniversary retrospectives, they consciously made the decision to maintain a lot of backwards compatibility (which meant not fixing some things they might have otherwise fixed). The upside of this is that converting 3.5 material, including Season 0 of PFS, really isn't too difficult. Check out the Conversion Guide for some general advice.
The Season 0 bundle does not include the retired ones. (That's why it's cheaper than the other season bundles.)
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They were retired for various reasons. Some for example were just way too deadly.
One thing you should know about the First Steps -scenarios is that the second and third one will be retired (because they feature factions that will also be retired, Lantern Lodge and Shadow Lodge), so if you want to play all three, you should hurry.
PFS is quite fast in leveling, I think. One scenario earns you one Xp, three Xps gets you a level. So on average 12h of playing -> level up.
I have run one season 0 scenario. The important thing to remember is that you shouldn't do a full conversion. The Guide to PFS Organized Play has the details, but if I remember correctly you only add CMD/CMB scores and modify the skill list to the Pahtfinder one. No adjusting HP, no adding channel to clerics, etc. But you should check the guide and not trust my memory.
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Season 0 is also a good reason to dust off your 3.5 Monster Manual as you will need it. Monsters in scenarios can be templated (sometimes they include the full statblock sometimes not). The PFS (Pathfinder Society) Google drive (linked from these messageboards) contains a wealth of useful gm information.
Keep in mind that you cannot simply remove the 3.5 MM monsters from the Season 0 scenarios and replace with Pathfinder Bestiary ones. The scenarios dont allow for this and nor do the rules.
As for the Chronicle sheets ,(You will find it rare that people ever actually buy from them)
Good luck and when in doubt come back here and ask!
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17-25 is a pretty normal page count. There is at least 1 season 0 as short as 11 or 12. They were designed to be played in a 4 hour slot including introduction and paperwork and everything. (At some point they switch over to a 5hr slot assumption)
There are a few that can run quite short but they mostly fit the bill quite nicely.
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Heh... I hear 17-25 pages, and I think, "man, how will you ever get through that in just 4-5 hours??" Interesting how different people have different instinctive reactions.
The answer, partly, is: 17-25 pages usually includes "extra deadspace" because there are multiple statblocks for each creature, depending on which level you're running the scenario at.
I've run 8 games so far, but two of them have been PbP (which mean they take MONTHS to complete). (I've got three other PbP games in progress.) Of the six that I've run with my FtF group, I've done the three First Steps games, and the others have been from season 0. My experience is that only once did we bleed past 4 hours. Once, maybe twice, we were done within 4 hours, but the screwing around at the end where we clean up the table and I fill out chronicle sheets took a little extra time. There have also be a couple of times when we were done in less than four hours; one of them we were done in just a little bit under three hours.
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cmastah if they're of the TL;DR type, then they want to read only the parts of the core rulebook that are relevant to their character (class, skill, feats, spells mostly) and the PFS guide (character creation, how to buy equipment, how to spend prestige, how fame works, and day jobs).
Inner Sea World Guide really only works if you're interested in Golarion lore.
Field Guide/Seeker of Secrets will really help them deal with the Society, but it's not essential, and they're likely to be more receptive to those books only after they've played, once they understand the context - "hey we met the Paracountess with that funky box!"