If you're not using indexes, that could well explain why your selects are slow. What you want to do is identify the columns you are selecting on, (like if you have select * from mytable where name="bob"), and index those columns. (In this case, index the "name" column). If you are doing joins, index the columns of both tables you are joining on. Refer to the MySQL manual for help:

• How MySQL uses indexes
• MySQL column indexes
• MySQL Create index syntax