Microsoft Press as usual delivers a very reliable source for information for SQL Server professionals. This book is very verbose and very technical, but unfortunately I have a hard time recommending this book.

As with other Microsoft Press books, I find that they provide the information I want to know, but they do so in a very dry, uninviting manner. Inside T-SQL Querying has been no different.

The first two chapters are devoted to Logical Query Processing and Physical Query Processing. I recommend that everyone using databases professionally reads this section thoroughly. Understanding how a query is executed is invaluable information for developing more efficient queries.

The third chapter introduces some of the concepts of Query Tuning. If you're already familiar with optimizing your queries in SQL Server 2005, this chapter is great for building your repertoire. If you are new to this topic and if you need to improve your existing queries, you should definitely pick up a more in-depth book than this one. This is a great start, and as a part of the whole, this chapter is great. However, there are definitely whole books devoted to query tuning.

The next three chapters are devoted primarily to Select statements [although, many of the concepts you'll see can apply to data Writes, too]. This section is one of the weaknesses of the book. While the code examples are technically correct, the code is not clearly or concisely described. For those who are already familiar with most of these topics, this shouldn't be a problem. For those who are newer to T-SQL, I strongly advice you find another book.

The eighth chapter is devoted to writing data. Again, this information is technically correct, but not always laid out in the most clear manner.

The ninth chapter is devoted to Graphs, Tress, Hierarchies, and Recursive Queries. This proved to be very useful reading -- I highly recommend this material. It is a very interesting topic, and for the most part was laid out very well. Please keep in mind, that this builds on a lot of the information from above.

The end of book has a plethora of logic puzzles. I have not yet found the time to make my way through these puzzles, but I look forward to the opportunity to try some of these out.

All in all, this was a very informative book, and if you're familiar with the concepts, I definitely recommend reading through it. I've learned many new things, and I've reviewed many rusty subjects. However, as with most MS Press books that I've read, the information in this book is presented in a very dry manner, and I found it difficult to forge forth.

This book has a wealth of information, but when you're just picking up some of these topics, look for a different book.