Last year, Kevin Kline (blog | twitter) introduced me to Oracle and database expert, Bert Scalzo. Bert was looking to take his Introduction to Oracle book and do a companion book, but for SQL Server. So we put our heads together and collaborated to write Introduction to SQL Server, which is self-published. The book is intended to be useful for someone knew to SQL Server, typically an end user who is faced with getting data out of Microsoft SQL Server. It covers the basics, as can be seen by the Table of Contents:

• Chapter 1: Terminology
• Chapter 2: Preparation
• Chapter 3: SQL Server Management Studio
• Chapter 4: Database Objects
• Chapter 5: Basic SQL
• Chapter 6: Advanced SQL
• Chapter 7: SQL Server Reporting Services
• Chapter 8: TOAD
• Chapter 9: Microsoft Office
• Chapter 10: Database Sandbox