Do you know that the post you have uploaded on social media or the article you are currently reading is stored in a virtual space? That virtual space is called a database. To play with it, we use a database language, named SQL, which stands for Structured Query Language. It is used to communicate with a database i.e., storing, manipulating, and retrieving data in a relational database.
As a computer science student or a developer, you have heard about this technology, and you must have tried searching for something that will teach you SQL language or enhance your SQL language. Here, we have given the 7 best books that will teach you how to write better SQL queries, advanced concepts in SQL, and much more things from it.
Best Books for SQL:
1. SQL: QuickStart Guide – The Simplified Beginner’s Guide To SQL
If you have no prior knowledge of SQL, this book will help you strengthen your foundation and start your SQL journey with it because it is simple and easy to follow concepts. In this book, you will find many problems with step-by-step examples and you’ll be able to practice SQL queries with it.
This book covers –
- Relational databases and how they are structured,
- Importance of SQL in the database,
- Fundamentals of SQL Syntax,
- Learning complex SELECT statements,
- And much more.
2. SQL in 10 minutes, Sam’s Teach Yourself
This is the best book for beginners to learn SQL. In this book, you will find twenty-two short and quick lessons. You’ll have to spend ten minutes on each task. The book covers topics such as the use of joins, subqueries, stored procedures, cursors, triggers, and table constraints. It goes from simple data retrieval to more complex issues.
What you will learn –
- Retrieve, sort, and format database contents,
- Use of the aggregate function to summarize data,
- Join two or more related tables,
- Insert, update, and delete data,
- Create and alter database tables,
- And much more.
3. Head First SQL
This is another beginner-friendly book that teaches you the fundamentals of SQL. Head First SQL book is a well-organized and visually rich format book designed to help our brains learn things quickly. It covers concepts ranging from scratch to hardcore database manipulation with indices, joins, and transactions. By the time you finish this book, you are able to write queries and join your data like a pro. This book makes SQL challenging, interesting and fun.
4. SQL: The Ultimate Beginner Guide
This book covers all the basic concepts you need to learn as a beginner. It will teach you various concepts, such as making and removing tables, where clauses, and more. It is simple, concise, and easy to understand. It is also for those who want to learn SQL for their web applications or any SQL database project requiring SQL. If you are going to start your journey, this book will be an essential guide for you.
5. Learning SQL By Alan Beaulieu
In this book, you will learn how a dataset interacts with queries, and also understand the importance of subqueries. This book takes you from the basics of SQL to many advanced features.
This book covers –
- SQL data statements to generate, manipulate, and retrieve data,
- Create database objects,
- Convert and manipulate data with SQL’s built-in functions,
- Conditional logic in data statements and much more.
You can also improve your SQL skills by solving the exercises.
6. SQL Cookbook
In this book, you’ll find SQL techniques and features shared by experienced SQL developer Anthony Molinaro and his favorites. And these techniques and features will help you to enhance your SQL skills to the next level. It also covers advanced concepts like window functions, database features, and basic SQL concepts like create, select, update and delete.
What you will learn –
- Learning complex questions, fixing your questions, preparing data, manipulating, grouping and reporting.
- Database-specific features such as SQL-PIVOT and UNPIVOT operators, Oracle’s MODEL clause, and PostgreSQL’s very useful GENERATE_SERIES function.
- Window functions, Pivoting rows into columns, reverse-pivoting columns into rows.
- How to create histograms, generate running totals and subtotals, etc.
As you move further in the book, you will also learn the technique of walking the string, which allows you to use SQL to parse through string characters, words, or delimited elements. Overall, it’s an excellent book for both beginners and advanced SQL database developers looking to enhance their SQL skills.
7. SQL Practice Problems
Are you looking for a book that will help you learn SQL by solving real-world problems? If yes, then you are in the right book. This book will teach you how to ‘think in SQL’, how to analyze data problems, figure out the fundamentals, and much more. In this book, you’ll find 57 practice problems that you have to work on step by step, and by doing these problems you will improve your ability to write high-level SQL code. The method of teaching in this book is the learn-by-doing technique. With this book, you can solve the most common problems when you deal with data and also learn the most useful techniques to solve them. If you are a software developer who wants to write efficient and accurate SQL, or an SQL learner, who wants to solve real-world problems, then you can go for this book.
Conclusion:
Finally, we have covered all the books required to kick-start your SQL journey and learn many more things in SQL. By the way, books are the best resource for learning anything and the information given in the books is provided by the people who have years of experience and the ability to present them.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
1. What is SQL?
Ans: Structured Query Language or SQL is a standard Database language that is used to create, maintain and retrieve data from relational databases like MySQL, Oracle, PostGre, etc. It is used when we have structured data, in the form of tables.
2. How many days it will take to learn SQL?
Ans: SQL is relatively a simple language and takes approx 3-4 weeks to learn it perfectly. You can go through 30 Days of SQL – From Basic to Advanced Level to learn and master SQL.
3. Why should you learn SQL?
Ans: In today’s digital world there has been a growing demand for people who can handle the database properly and SQL helps you to do the same. SQL is a language that has been specially designed to work with huge databases. Various big companies nowadays require a SQL expert who can take good care of data specifically in banking, ticket booking, data sharing social media eCommerce, etc. Hence, there is a large pool of opportunities available for people who learn Structured Query Language, therefore, if you have an interest then you should definitely learn this language.
4. Which are the best SQL books?
Ans: Some of the best SQL books:
- SQL Practice Problems
- Learning SQL By Alan Beaulieu
- SQL Cookbook
- Learning SQL: Master SQL Fundamentals
- SQL Queries for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL
