I'm on a few publishers' lists as someone that reviews books, works with SQL Server, and in general might help them sell copies of books. A number of friends from SQLServerCentral, and other sites, have written books as well, and often send me copies.

Just the other day I received a copy of the MCTS SQL Server 2008 Prep from Mark Horniger,someone I've known from SQLServerCentral for some time. That's after getting a package of 2 Apress books, which was preceded by 2 packages from WROX with a total of 7 books on various aspects of SQL Server.

I'm not a full-time DBA, and I have a number of other commitments, so I'm not sure I'll even get through most of these books, let alone all of them, but I'm looking forward to diving into a few of them.

The one on spatial is first on my list, since I've not really worked with that technology before, and I'm curious to see how it works and what applications might exist for me. Beginning Spatial with SQL Server 2008 is by Alastair A and it’s interesting. In going through the first few chapters, there’s a lot of information to absorb about what exactly spatial data is and how it’s encoded, not to mention even used. I’ve never worked with spatial data, so this is all new to me.

So far I think it’s a very informative book, and it’s helping to get me up to speed on this new technology in SQL Server 2008. Look for some interesting spatial Questions of the Day sprinkled throughout the new few months.

I’ll try to read through some of the other books, but if you’re interested in any of them, let me know if I should slide one further up my stack of reading material. The list is:

• Beginning Spatial with SQL Server 2008
• MCTS SQL Server 2008 Exam 70-432
• SQL Server 2008 Query Performance Tuning Distilled
• Beginning SQL Server 2008 Programming
• Professional SQL Server 2008 Programming
• Beginning SQL Server 2008 Administration
• Professional SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services
• SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services with MDX
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 For Dummies (I might not read this one)
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies
• Beginning T-SQL with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and 2008
• Professional SQL Server 2008 Integration Services
• Professional SQL Server 2008 Administration