The first thing I need to say about this book is: wow.
T-SQL Querying is easy to read and yet really gets in depth with T-SQL. It reminds me of Itzik's presentations - complex concepts explained in a comfortable and informative style. The book covers query processing and optimisation, has some useful scripts for performance monitoring, logic puzzles, the new features of SQL Server 2005 like CTEs, ranking functions and APPLY, and plenty more. Some sections of the book could easily become my standard reference material on logical and physical query processing, while other sections are almost tutorial-like.
One of the advantages of reading this 600+ page book on paper over blog posts, is that a whole chapter can be dedicated to explaining a concept using increasingly complex examples. Another advantage is that most sections of code are followed by the corresponding results, which are in turn often followed by query plan results, so you can see the input, output and plan without necessarily having to run the query. In a blog post, this would just take up too much room.
I've already been able to put some of Itzik's hints and tips to good use, as well as finally using CTEs and understanding the "new" DMVs (things I knew about before, but didn't quite "get").
This book gets 2 thumbs up, 5 stars and 10 out of 10 from me. I guess next on my reading list will be the companion book Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Programming.
Tags: sql server, review, Itzik Ben-Gan