SQL Queries for Mere Mortals(R): A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL
To the people who are accomplished in its use, Structured Query Language  (SQL) is a highly capable, eminently flexible, even beautiful way of describing  the data that you want from a database, or the changes that you want to make to  a database. For the rest of us, however, SQL is a first-class nuisance that we  do our best to avoid by relying on relatively user-friendly--but usually less  powerful--tools.SQL Queries for Mere Mortalsaims to bring SQL-phobes  closer to the first camp by tutoring them carefully in what SQL can do.The authors recognize that SQL queries usually come about as a result of  questions from human beings, and so usefully spend a fair bit of time showing  how to convert, say, "In what cities do our customers live?" into, "Select city  from the customers table" and, finally, "SELECT city FROM customers" in SQL.  They call this the "translation and clean up" process, and it's a fine approach.  They don't press it too far, however, and are equally adept at presenting  straight explanations of SQL syntax elements in prose. They spend a lot of  energy graphically diagramming aspects of SQL syntax in a format that requires  some up-front study. A particular reader might prefer text capsules to this  arrow-intensive format, but other learners might like the graphical syntax  diagrams.--David WallTopics covered:ANSI SQL/92 for people who need to use it to make queries  against business databases. The authors introduce one or two syntax elements at  a time--SELECT, WHERE, JOIN, UNION, and so on--and cover data extraction, data  insertion, filtering, joins, calculations, and other capabilities of generic  SQL.