Top Database books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite Database books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Database

Understanding the concepts of Database starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

Database Design for Mere Mortals: 25th Anniversary Edition

Michael J. Hernandez's best-selling Database Design for Mere Mortals has earned worldwide respect as the simplest way to learn relational database design. Now, he has made this hands-on, software independent tutorial even clearer and easier to use. ...

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Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems

Data is at the center of many challenges in system design today. Difficult issues need to be figured out, such as scalability, consistency, reliability, efficiency, and maintainability. ...

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Practical Issues in Database Management: A Reference for the Thinking Practitioner

Databas(e)ics clearly explains the key concepts users and database professionals need to understand in order to build well-designed databases that answer business questions accurately and efficiently. ...

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Generative AI System Design Interview

Designing generative AI (GenAI) systems for interviews can be complex and challenging. This book offers a clear and structured approach to help you tackle a wide range of GenAI system design questions. It provides a practical framework and real-world examples to make learning these concepts easier.
This book complements our ML System Design Interview book. While the first book focuses on to…

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Database Design for Mere Mortals: A Hands-on Guide to Relational Database Design

The #1 Easy, Commonsense Guide to Database Design! Michael J. Hernandez’s best-selling Database Design for Mere Mortals® has earned worldwide respect as the clearest, simplest way to learn relational database design. ...

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NoSQL Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Emerging World of Polyglot Persistence

The need to handle increasingly larger data volumes is one factor driving the adoption of a new class of nonrelational "NoSQL" databases. Advocates of NoSQL databases claim they can be used to build systems that are more performant, scale better, and are easier to program. ...

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Additional Database Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Database, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

Readings in Database Systems

In this collection of articles, the breadth of database research and applications is represented. Many of the forty articles are sourced from out-of-print or limited circulation journals, and technical ...

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Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch)

In Build a Large Language Model (from Scratch) bestselling author Sebastian Raschka guides you step by step through creating your own LLM. Each stage is explained with clear text, diagrams, and examples. You’ll go from the initial design and creation, to pretraining on a general corpus, and on to fine-tuning for specific tasks.

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Database System Concepts

Presents the fundamental concepts of database management. This text is suitable for a first course in databases at the junior/senior undergraduate level or the first year graduate level.

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Database Internals: A Deep Dive Into How Distributed Data Systems Work

When it comes to choosing, using, and maintaining a database, understanding its internals is essential. But with so many distributed databases and tools available today, it’s often difficult to understand what each one offers and how they differ. ...

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Database Systems: The Complete Book

For Database Systems and Database Design and Application courses offered at the junior, senior and graduate levels in Computer Science departments. ...

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Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet

The internet of today is a far cry from its early promise of a decentralized, democratic network of innovation, connection, and freedom. In the past decade, it has fallen almost entirely under the control of a very small group of companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook. In Read Write Own, tech visionary Chris Dixon argues that the dream of an open network for fostering creativity and entrep…

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