Database Book Reviews

We'll review here those texts which are, or claim to be, about database management systems. We try to be current, but we do not always go out and buy the latest edition of every book, especially if we disliked the last edition. We try to be fair, but disclaim responsibility for any errors or omissions. This page has three sections: THE TOP 15 DBMS BOOKS, DATABASE TEXTBOOKS FOR COLLEGES, DATA MODELING BOOKS.

THE TOP 15 DBMS BOOKS. We power searched the amazon.com database for database management or database design. We only want works published or revised within the last two years, about the whole topic. So we exclude books if they are primarily about: SQL, a particular vendor's package, data modeling, object-oriented or entity-relationship models, or the web. These are our picks, in order by average user rating:

Database design for mere mortals. Hernandez. 5 stars. The book avoids most of the jargon that encrusts this topic (which as the title says is "design" not "introduction"). Instead Hernandez wants us to learn through examples and logic. Professors will object, practitioners will approve. Read ERCB's review. Read accu's review. Read an excerpt.
Build your own database. Jacsó and Lancaster. 5 stars. Despite the good reviews, we suggest that students of "database design" will learn nothing from this. It's for librarians only, and even librarians should read something else to find out what database design means to computer specialists. Read Gregory's review. Read Sylvia's review.
Database management. Watson. 5 stars. Business oriented, with case studies of actual organizations. Read the preface.
Database management systems. Post. 5 stars. Has examples in Access/VB and Oracle, and a CDROM. Currently hard to get. Read Stary's review (in German).
Handbook of data management. Purba (ed). 5 stars. A compilation of many articles with no cohering theme. Not a useful first text.
Database systems. Atzeni et al. 4.5 stars. Emphasizes "how to", e.g. how to query, how to define structure. Read the preface.
Practical issues in database management. Fabian Pascal. 4.5 stars. Somewhat too shrill. Read a sample chapter. Read Sims's review.
Designing relational database systems. Riordan. 4 stars. Unfortunately Ms Riordan has turned her attention to ADO.NET books and this book is now hard to get. Read SSP's review. Download Linson's review. Read an excerpt.
Advanced Database Technology and Design. Piattini and Diaz (eds). 4 stars. Unpopular.
Databases and Transaction Processing. Lewis et al. 4 stars. Contains advanced college level descriptions of material that isn't collected elsewhere. Expensive, soporific, and -- for the elite few -- required reading. Read a sample chapter.
Database Management Systems. Ramakrishnan and Gehrke. 3.5 stars. If you know how to program computers, but are a complete database novice, the book's attention to internal matters (e.g. hashing and locking) will interest you. You'll need something else for SQL, database design, or relational theory. A CDROM will be available separately.
Relational database design clearly explained. Harrington. 3.5 stars. Simple, no big words. Read Coombes's review. But also read de Beer's review of another Harrington book.
Database Systems Design, Implementation and Management. Rob and Coronel. 3.5 stars. Emphasis on design, with a lengthy case study. Well illustrated. To follow the examples you'd need Access or Oracle (not included). Read the table of contents.
Joe Celko's Data and Databases. Celko. 3.5 stars. Not an explanatory text but a collection of tips for database workers. For example, you'll learn what the encoding is for American Social Security numbers, what the ISO format is for time of day, what the algorithm is for check digits of an ISBN, and what to do with duplicate data -- things you'll want to get the idea of now, and look up again someday later. Here is something a database initiate can breeze through in a few hours, and emerge more knowledgeable about several fine points. Erratum: Peter Gulutzan (ahem) claims credit for explanatory notes on pages 101 through 104. C.J.Date wrote a critique of Chapter 18 but it doesn't damage my concept of the book as a whole.
Database Systems. Lorents and Morgan. 3 stars. Out of print.
A Guided Tour of Relational Databases and Beyond. Levene and Loizou. No stars. These are technically-oriented authors, you can get an idea of that by downloading one of their articles from Levene's Online Papers page.

DATABASE TEXTBOOKS FOR COLLEGES. Certainly this category overlaps the previous one, and the main differences are in marketing or tone. The college texts can be duller (they know you have to pay attention anyway), but have deeper content and you'll learn more from them. Also, due to the peer review process, textbooks are relatively free of howlers -- C.J.Date's books are particularly applaudable in this respect. Our list includes six books which are required reading in at least 50 college/university courses, as determined by an Internet search. Three years ago Keith Chan reviewed earlier editions of five of these books, the winner was Connolly and Begg and Strachan's Database Systems (1995 edition). Mathieu and Khalil (in Data Quality magazine) say that the texts by Kroenke, and by McFadden and Hoffer, "would generally be considered textbooks suited for MIS curricula" while the texts by Date, and by Silberscharz, Korth, & Sudarhan "are geared more towards a computer science curriculum".

An introduction to database systems, seventh edition. C.J.Date. 3.5 stars. A fixture on university bookstore shelves since 1975, by the most famous and prolific of all database gurus. Though we recommend his works unreservedly, many are offput by by his condemnations of those who deviate from relational underpinnings. The emphasis is on theory, which means that you won't see market or business relevance immediately, but means that what you learn from him now will be useful years hence. Read net's review. Read Ahmed's review.
Database Processing: Fundamentals, Design and Implementation, seventh edition. Kroenke. 4 stars. Dry.
Modern database management, fifth edition. McFadden et al. 4.5 stars.
Database solutions. Connolly and Begg. No stars. College faculty can ask for an exam copy.
Fundamentals of database systems, third edition. Elmasri and Navathe. 4 stars. College faculty can ask for an exam copy.
Database system concepts, third edition. Korth and Silberschatz. 4 stars. Some mathematical notation. Currently hard to get; we're waiting for the fourth edition to appear in June.

There are some other intended textbooks, which haven't yet caught on but are worth considering: Ullmann's A first course in database systems (which is graduate level), O'Neil et al's Database.

DATA MODELING BOOKS. All the college textbooks contain some information about data modeling, the following books are for Stakhanovites who want to pursue the subject further.

Object-Relational DBMSs. Stonebraker et al. 4.5 stars.
Database modeling and design. Teory. 4 stars. Dry.
Data modeling for information professionals. Schmidt and Warren. 4 stars. Read Falk's review.
Advanced ANSI SQL Data Modeling and Structure Processing. David. 4 stars.
Data modeling with ERwin. DeAngelis. 3.5 stars. Beginner.
Entity-Relationship Modeling. Thalheim. No stars.

Coming soon: Database Design And Management Using Microsoft Access (Dowling) (download a sample chapter); Developing Quality Complex Database Systems (Becker) (view author's home page); Information Modeling and Relational Databases (Halpin) (read article); Theory and Practice of Relational Databases (Stanczyk) (the first edition in 1990 was well regarded). .

See also our related pages: SQL Book Reviews, Java and SQL Book Reviews.

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