Though we value the time and effort you have taken to answer to this question, I'd advice to read the whole thread before posting next time.

In your elaborate answers, you have left in all the fundamental errors of the OP and only commented on possible improvements on the sequence of coding that do not solve the question at hand, thus adding distraction to the readers however well you meant, this does not help.

Declaring a SQL statement is not the same thing as preparing it. If you have read the book you point to, you should know that :)

The OP has nothing to do with declaring or preparing the SQL statement, but with using the correct syntax in being able to access a table. Quoting might be more an issue here than shuffling the code around.

Personally, I would not put the statement in a variable at all, but pass it directly to the prepare method, but TIMTOWTDI, and neither is wrong.

$sth->finish is only to be executed on non-select handles. The book is a bit outdated/obsoleted in that subject.