Database System Concepts by Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan is now
in its 7th edition and is one of the cornerstone texts of database
education. It presents the fundamental concepts of database management
in an intuitive manner geared toward allowing students to begin working
with databases as quickly as possible.
The text is designed for a first course in databases at the
junior/senior undergraduate level or the first year graduate level. It
also contains additional material that can be used as supplements or as
introductory material for an advanced course. Because the authors
present concepts as intuitive descriptions, a familiarity with basic
data structures, computer organization, and a high-level programming
language are the only prerequisites. Important theoretical results are
covered, but formal proofs are omitted. In place of proofs, figures and
examples are used to suggest why a result is true.