Simple and straight forward
I am new to MySQL. Therefore, my interests were to understand in a straight forward way how to build a relational database in MySQL. Contrary to other books that promise to get a developer up and running within a short time - comparing to those books like 'teach yourself .... in 1 hour' with over 1000 pages .... - this book is indeed easy to read. If you know the basics about relational DB but have no idea about MySQL, this book will do the job. It's very easy to read because each chapter is singe focused, consistently links to the sample case study, expands on the case study with each chapter, and always ends a chapter properly with a summary. At the end of the book, you will find short and precise appendices that are helpful lookups (e.g., description of the sample DB, MySQL data types, reserved words, and more). I have kept the book in my bag and whenever I was on the train, I read a few pages. Within almost no time, I could get half way through the book and still remember what I needed to remember! It's not a waste of money.
