Oracle Book Reviews

We'll review here those texts which are, or claim to be, about Oracle SQL. 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.

THE TOP 20 ORACLE BOOKS. We power searched the amazon.com database for Oracle etc., deliberately excluding any publication date before January 2002, and excluding any title emphasizing peripheral topics (such as Perl, scripts, clusters, .net, networks, OCP, and backups). That leaves the most recent general and tuning books. We have sorted this list in approximate order of importance, by placing the most popular books first. If there is an amazon rating, of 1 to 5 stars, we have noted it.

• Oracle9i: The Complete Reference. Koch and Loney. 5 stars. McGraw-Hill. August 2002. The most popular of the doorstopper Oracle books. The CD-ROM contains an electronically readable version of the book. Read the TDAN review of an earlier edition. Read a sample PDF chapter. Visit Kevin Loney's web site.
• Oracle 9i New Features. Freeman. 4.5 stars. McGraw-Hill. January 2002. You'll find that Freeman is concise and knowledgeable. Read a sample chapter. Read an article by the author (PDF).
• Beginning Oracle Programming. Dillon et al. 4 stars. Wrox. March 2002. One of the co-authors is pretty famous. Read a sample chapter.
• Mastering Oracle SQL. Mishra and Beaulieu. 4 stars. O'Reilly. April 2002. Apparently the first co-author (Sanjay Mishra) is not the famous guitarist ... too bad. Read a sample chapter. Read Ross's review.
• Oracle PL/SQL Programming. Feuerstein and Pribyl. 4 stars. O'Reilly. Third Edition, September 2002. Mostly this is by Feuerstein, and he's a well-known well-respected Oracle author. Read a sample chapter from an earlier book. Read Minihane's short comment. Read zx81.org.uk's review.
• Oracle 9i JDBC Programming. Price et al. 5 stars. McGraw-Hill. May 2002. Mr Price wrote an earlier book about Oracle and SQLJ, and it got good reviews. Read an article by the author (about SQLJ).
• High-Performance Oracle: Proven Methods for Achieving Optimum Performance and Availability. Ingram. 5 stars. Wiley. August 2002. Best for DBAs. Read a sample PDF chapter.
• Oracle9i High-Performance Tuning with STATSPACK. Burleson. 5 stars. McGraw-Hill. March 2002. This is a well-known author, he's written quite a bit about performance tuning, he's with an Oracle consulting business. Read Adlam's review. Visit the author's web page. Read a sample chapter.
• Oracle9i DBA 101. Theriault et al. No stars. McGraw-Hill. June 2002. Ms. Theriault also co-authored an Oracle DBA handbook with Kevin Loney. Read a sample chapter from an earlier book by the same author. Read an article on tuning tools by Theriault.
• Oracle9i for Windows(R) Handbook. Velpuri and Adkoli. 5 stars. McGraw-Hill. April 2002. Velpuri is regarded as an expert on backup, recovery, and troubleshooting. Read Wall's review of an earlier book by the same authors. Read a sample chapter.
• Oracle SQL and PL/SQL Handbook: A Guide for Data Administrators, Developers, and Business Analysts. Palinski. 5 stars. Addison-Wesley. August 2002. Read an excerpt from a 1997 book by the same author.
• Oracle SQL*Plus Pocket Reference (2nd Edition). Gennick. 4 stars. O'Reilly. October 2002. Gennick is a fairly prolific author, his Oracle books sell well and some have been translated to Chinese and German. Read a list of Gennick's magazine articles. Read Bell's review.
• Learning SQL: A Step-By-Step Guide Using Oracle. Earp and Bagui. 5 stars. Addison-Wesley. May 2002. The authors work for a university in Florida. They have also written "Learning SQL: A Step-by-Step Guide with Access". For this level, I expect a somewhat formulaic progress from normal forms, data types, and the main DML statements to a look at a few features, with no attention to O/R or host interfacing.
• The Oracle of Oracle: The Story of Volatile CEO Larry Ellison and the Strategies Behind His Company's Phenomenal Success. Stone. 3 stars. Amacom. January 2002. Oracle chief Larry Ellison isn't our topic strictly speaking, but I know that some Oracle users will interest themselves in the internal machinations at the company. Still, for such readers, most people would recommend Larry Ellison: Sheer Nerve (a kids' book) or The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison rather than this one.
• OCP: Oracle9i Performance Tuning Study Guide with CDROM. Johnson. 3.5 stars. Sybex. June 2002. This is a study guide for the "Oracle Professional Certification" requirements; Sybex publishes a bunch; generally I've excluded OCP books when preparing this list. Read a sample chapter.
• Oracle Performance Tuning. Whalen and Shroeter. No stars. Addison-Wesley. April 2002. Whalen has also done Microsoft SQL Server books. Read the preface. Read an article by Whalen.
• Database Systems Using Oracle: A Simplified Guide to SQL and PL/SQL. Shah. 5 stars. Prentice Hall. January 2002. This is occasionally used as a supplementary text in college courses. Read the preface.
• So You Want to Be an Oracle Dba: Still More Useful Information, Scripts and Suggestions for the New and Experienced Oracle Dba. Ashmore. 5 stars. Writers Club Press (aka iuniverse.com, which looks like a vanity publisher). April 2002. I haven't seen this and never heard of the author, I was tempted to leave this book out, but the amazon.com review is enthusiastic and the book is cheap.
• Oracle 9i: SQL. Pinnacle Software Solutions Inc. No stars. Pinnacle. March 2002. Pinnacle Publishing does the Oracle Professional Newsletter which is well regarded. This book is rather unpopular, though.

• Expert One On One: Oracle.. Kyte. 5 stars. Wrox. June 2001.
• OCP: Oracle9i Certification Kit. Dawes et al. 5 stars. Sybex. June 2002.

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