Sams Teach Yourself ADO.NET in 24 Hours

I was a little apprehensive after reading the review here. So I actually went to a local bookstore (try it, it's fun!) to flip through the pages to see for myself before buying it online. I think it's a case of setting the right expectations. It's not a "ADO.NET Bible" nor a 2000-page reference, so don't expect that type of detail from this book. However, this is for someone using Visual Studio .Net for the second time, right after having mastered sample VS tutorials and ready to try out DB connectivities for the first time. I have used DB's before, but just learning Visual Studio (C#) for the first time. So I am from a different path than most other indended readers. I found the DB sections to be very accurate and easy to follow. That gave me the confidence that the other sections would be on par. The rest of the sections provided a logical next step to Microsoft's own tutorial, especially on the area of connection pooling and what performance traps there are for people with little or no DB background. Even though it's 400 pages, it makes a very clean/quick read on the interactions between front-end code and DB. I would recommend reading this book after going through Visual Studio's tutorial. Don't get me wrong, you would still need a reference (on-line or book form), but this book does a good job of easing you into the completely different world of DB interactions.