Well, it ain't the book review section, but here's my mini-review of MySQL and mSQL: it's not a bad introduction to the basics of databases, incl. normalization and application architecture -- but I'm willing to bet that, other than the normalization stuff, most of those who are interested in "learning databases" don't need a lot of what it has to offer there -- basically, it has a lot of *very* short chapters on how to access MySQL and mSQL DBs from various types of languages, and often it doesn't get past providing a *reference* for the MySQL API for that language.

I'm more a fan of Programming the Perl DBI, co-written by Tim Bunce and Alligator Descartes; the former wrote a bunch of the DBD modules (drivers for specific types of databases) and maintains the DBI module. It takes you from flat files to 'real' DBMSen (some will tell you MySQL is not a 'real' database -- phbt! -- it does what many ask of it, and quite well; it stores information, therefore it's a database! -- herendeth the rant), and contains a pretty good reference on the DBD modules for various DB servers (Oracle, MySQL, Sybase, etc.). So let me second the nomination for that.

IMO, once you've got the basic idea behind the "prepare, bind/execute" cycle down (if it's not clear what that means, hopefully it will become so if you look at such sources as the Tutorials on this site (I like this one -- and check this other new-fangled perl site for what I think is a pretty good DBI tutorial by some other monk), the DBI module documentation is actually pretty helpful. If you go beyond MySQL to something like (gasp!) Oracle, one thing that will help you is ... well, nothing will help you =)

(OK, that last comment is definitely the result of me wrestling with Oracle all day today. Feel free to disregard that one =)

Philosophy can be made out of anything. Or less -- Jerry A. Fodor

In my opinion the "MySQL and mSQL" book is a real low in O'Reilly's output. It's basically a rehash of the manual pages and seems incomplete and patchy.

Much better is Paul DuBois' "MySQL", published by New Riders.

"Perl makes the fun jobs fun
and the boring jobs bearable" - me

That O'Reilly book is quite good, but doesn't, to my mind at least, get into the issues of designing databases. (Not that it should, it's a programming guide)

I actually enjoyed reading the Practical SQL Handbook -- I found it to be a very clear, accessible introduction to the basics of designing and using SQL databases.

It also looks like there's a new book out by the same authors called: Practical SQL: The Sequel. So that might also be worth a look.