Best SQL Books 2023 | Take Your Skill to a New Level

The SQL: 3 books in 1 - The Ultimate Beginner, Intermediate & Expert Guides to Mastering SQL Programming Quickly is a great resource for data management. The book guides you through understanding different concepts like constraints, databases ( personal, group, and enterprise) and how to use SQL language. The language in the book is helpful, no distractions trying to understand one concept, and everything is just clear and detailed. And as the book mention, there are some free tools in the beginning. This book is a great resource for those who want to learn SQL language or beginners who want to increase their data management skills.

This book is excellent for beginners in SQL. I already had a solid foundation, but reading through it from beginning to end, I learned quite a lot. The author explains concepts in great detail with clear examples. The book is a very helpful introduction to SQL, the basics of making SQL statements, and using the command line to interface with data. Each chapter ends with a helpful try-it-yourself section where you can work through problems and relies on real-world data for examples. there is a GitHub online with the answers, as well as all code used in the book.

This guide for data scientists differs from other instructional guides on the subject. It doesn’t cover SQL broadly. Instead, you’ll learn the subset of SQL skills that data analysts and data scientists use frequently. You’ll also gain practical advice and direction on "how to think about constructing your dataset."

• Gain an understanding of relational database structure, query design, and SQL syntax
• Develop queries to construct datasets for use in applications like interactive reports and machine learning algorithms
• Review strategies and approaches so you can design analytical datasets
• Practice your techniques with the provided database and SQL code

Inside the audio of SQL: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Learn SQL Programming Step by Step,you’ll find a comprehensive guide to get you started, including chapters on:

• Understanding databases & database management systems • Using queries to obtain data • SQL joins and union • Ensuring data integrity • Creating an SQL view • How to setup & create a database • How to modify and control tables • Database administration • Dealing with errors • And more..

Even if you’ve never looked at a computer program before and had always thought that learning a computer language would be too difficult, this book can help, as it has been written with the novice in mind. SQL is one of the best language for ease of use and flexibility. And you could soon be writing your own programs quickly and efficiently.

As data floods into your company, you need to put it to work right away—and SQL is the best tool for the job. With the latest edition of this introductory guide, author Alan Beaulieu helps developers get up to speed with SQL fundamentals for writing database applications, performing administrative tasks, and generating reports. You’ll find new chapters on SQL and big data, analytic functions, and working with very large databases.

Each chapter presents a self-contained lesson on a key SQL concept or technique using numerous illustrations and annotated examples. Exercises let you practice the skills you learn. Knowledge of SQL is a must for interacting with data. With Learning SQL, you’ll quickly discover how to put the power and flexibility of this language to work.

This best SQL book offers:

• Move quickly through SQL basics and several advanced features.
• Use SQL data statements to generate, manipulate, and retrieve data.
• Create database objects, such as tables, indexes, and constraints with SQL schema statements.
• Learn how datasets interact with queries; understand the importance of subqueries.
• Convert and manipulate data with SQL’s built-in functions and use conditional logic in data statements.
  

If you're an application developer, or you're training to be one, this latest edition of Murach's classic SQL Server book is made for you. This is one of the best SQL books.

To start, it presents the SQL statements that you need to retrieve and update the data in a database. These are the SQL statements that you'll use every day. Then, it shows you how to design a database, how to implement that design, and how to work with database features like views, scripts, stored procedures, functions, triggers, transactions, security, XML data, and BLOB data with FILESTREAM storage.

You'll be able to create database applications that are thoroughly professional. You'll be familiar with the DBA-related issues that let you work far more effectively than most of your colleagues. And you'll have a handy reference at your side to answer questions and handle new challenges as they come up.

Whether you are an administrator or are looking to get started with database administration, this SQL Server book will help you develop the skills you need to successfully create, design, and deploy database solutions.

What you will learn

• Discover SQL Server 2019's new features and how to implement them
• Fix performance issues by optimizing queries and making use of indexes
• Design and use an optimal database management strategy
• Combine SQL Server 2019 with Azure and manage your solution using various automation techniques
• Implement efficient backup and recovery techniques in line with security policies
• Get to grips with migrating, upgrading, and consolidating with SQL Server
• Set up an AlwaysOn-enabled stable and fast SQL Server 2019 environment
• Understand how to work with Big Data on SQL Server environments

This SQL book starts with simple data retrieval and quickly going on to more complex topics including the use of joins, subqueries, stored procedures, cursors, triggers, and table constraints. The book itself is in full color, which is a nice touch, and the paper is of high quality. It provides lots of notes and hints along the way to help bolster your understanding. 

This book features:

• Understanding SQL.
• Retrieving Data.
• Sorting Retrieving Data.
• Filtering Data.
• Advanced-Data Filtering.
• Using Wildcard Filtering.
• Creating Calculated Fields.
• Using Data Manipulation Functions.
• Summarizing Data.
• Grouping Data.
• Working with subqueries.
• Joining Tables.
• Creating Advanced Joins.
• Combining Queries.
• Inserting Data.
• Updating and Deleting Data.
• Create and Manipulating Tables.
• Using Views.
• Working with Stored Procedures.
• Managing Transaction Procedures.
• Using Cursors.
• Understanding Advanced SQL Features.

SQL All -In-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition, is a one-stop shop for everything you need to know about SQL and SQL-based relational databases. Everyone from database administrators to application programmers and the people who manage them will find clear, concise explanations of the SQL language and its many powerful applications.

With the ballooning amount of data out there, more and more businesses, large and small, are moving from spreadsheets to SQL databases like Access, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle databases, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. This compendium of information covers designing, developing, and maintaining these databases.

• Cope with any issue that arises in SQL database creation and management
• Get current on the newest SQL updates and capabilities
• Reference information on querying SQL-based databases in the SQL language
• Understand relational databases and their importance to today’s organizations

SQL All-In-One For Dummies is a timely update to the popular reference for readers who want detailed information about SQL databases and queries.

This book is really good if you are looking for a beginner's guide in SQL. This has the very basics in SQL like how to create, insert and delete tables in a SQL database. It also gives us knowledge on how to pose queries that we are dealing with in SQL, how to join tables and read the questions and how to convert them into SQL queries.

There are many examples and practice exercises to get a complete grip on SQL commands and queries. It also has complex commands and the end for creating views for your queries which are very good.

It also helps you understand normalization and how different companies use different normalizations and helps classify them so you get a good understanding of the topic.

This book offers:

• The Fundamentals of SQL Programming Syntax.
  
• Retrieving Data with SQL.
• Built-in Functions and Calculations.
• Entering and Modifying Data.
• Defining Databases.

With the help of this book, you will get real-world practice problems to bring your SQL skills to the next level. Learning how to solve these problems will give you the skills and confidence to step up in your career.

You can get the level of experience by solving sets of targeted problems. These are the most common problems you encounter when you deal with the data. This book will help you how to think in SQL, how to analyze data problems, figure out the fundamentals, and work towards solution that you can be proud of.

This book provides:

• Setup instructions for MS SQL Server Express Edition 2016 and SQL Server Management Studio 2016.
• A customized sample database, with a video walk-through on setting it up.
• Practice problems - 57 problems that you work through step-by-step.
• Answers and a short, targeted discussion section on each question, with alternative answers and tips on usage and good programming practice.
• Easy to read and understand.

This book represents complex SQL concepts broken down into simple steps to ensure that you can easily master SQL even if you never coded before. Examples are given to illustrate all concepts. The complete process from database creation, table creation, data insertion, manipulation, retrieval is covered.

The flow of the book is carefully planned to help you follow along. All the concepts are presented in a 'to-the-point' style to cater to the busy individual. 

This book offers:

• Introduction to SQL.
• Defining the Database.
• Defining Tables.
• Inserting, Deleting and Updating.
• Selecting Data.
• Views and Triggers.
• Variables and Stored Routines.
• Control Flow Tools.
• Cursor and Project.

This is an excellent guide that takes you step-by-step through the basics of learning SQL. It is well organized and is useful as a reference to start with SQL. If you want to learn SQL with no background knowledge of the language, this should be the very first book. 

Different functions of SQL are presented throughout the book in a manner that makes them very easy to understand. It is a great textbook with practical and down-to-earth examples, exercises, and instructions. The content is broken into short, easily digestible segments that you can pick up quickly.

This book features:

• Getting Started with SQL.
• Creating a Database.
• Creating Tables.
• SQL Constraints.
• Select, Deleting Records.
• SQL Joins and Unions.
• Date and Time.
• MySQL Transactions.
• SQL Views.
• Temporary Tables, Cloning Tables.
• SQL Subqueries.
• Sequences.
• SQL Aliases and SQL Injection.

This book aims to take you to a professional level of understanding of SSIS. The book is an easy read, the authors have taken the time to explain things in a clear yet concise manner. 

This is the classic SSIS manual and related data warehousing. It has been updated with each release. Most of the examples are based on the sample Microsoft databases, allowing you to follow along, any additional files can be downloaded from the publisher.

This book contains:

• Introduction to SQL Server Integration Process.
• The SSIS Tools.
• SSIS Tasks and Data Flow.
• Using Variables, Parameters, and Expressions.
• Containers and Joining Data.
• Creating an End-to-End Package.
• Scripting an SSIS.
• Advanced-Data Cleansing in SSIS.
• Incremental Loads in SSIS.
• Loading a Data Warehouse.
• Using a Relational Engine.
• Accessing Heterogeneous Data.
• Reliability and Scalability.
• Understanding and Tuning the Data Flow Engine.
• SSIS Software Development Lifecycle.
• Error and Event Handling.
• Programming and Extending SSIS.
• Adding a User Interface to your component.
• External Management and WMI Task Implementation.
• Administering SSIS.

This is by far the most complete and detailed interview book to prepare you for Microsoft SQL Server DBA interviews. It has covered almost everything that a DBA needs to know and the most beautiful thing is that Mr. Uday has shared his own interviews. 

All of these questions have been collected from the people who attended interviews at various multinational companies across the world.

This book provides:

• SQL Server Architecture.
• Installation and Architecture.
• SQL Server Security.
• Backup and Restore.
• SQL Server Log Shipping.
• Database Mirroring.
• SQL Server Replication.
• Failover Clustering.
• SQL Server ALWAYSON.
• Concurrency and Locking.
• SQL Server Performance Tuning.
• DBA General and DBA Articles.