Ben Forta sent me a copy of his latest book: MySQL Crash Course a book based on his: Teach yourself SQL in 10 minutes book.

MySQL Crash Course is a concise guide (it's actually about the size of a novel, but 300 pages) to MySQL. I am a big fan of short and to the point books. Good job keeping it short Ben, I know you have written some hefty ones. ;)

The book doesn't focus on the system administration of MySQL, but rather the programming side of things - SQL.

I think this book would be great for someone who doesn't do a lot of SQL, but wants to get started and plans on using MySQL as the database.

Since the book covers MySQL 5, it is also a good reference for learning about the new features.

If you already know SQL, you would probably skip over about half of the book that covers standard SQL. The other half covers the basics to get you started, MySQL specific features (full text searching, regular expression matching, and the new features in MySQL 5.

The book is not for everyone, but anyone new to MySQL would find it useful.