Like most O'Reilly texts, this book is well-written, has a detailed index and table of contents, and uses good fonts.

The book starts with a pretty good description of database design and theory. The description is incomplete, but contains 95% of what most people designing a web backend would need to know.

The book covers mSQL in addition to MySQL. mSQL is an even lighter-weight database than MySQL. I did not read those pages and so cannot comment on them.

The book covers the use of the Perl DBI with MySQL. Readers familiar with the Perl DBI will find this section sufficient to serve as a reminder of its functionality, but readers unfamiliar with it are advised to get a separate tutorial on that subject. The book also describes other programming interfaces to MySQL, such as Python, PHP, C, C++, and Java, which pages I also did not read.

My major complaint with this book is the reference material. It contains a section with a listing of every MySQL command. The examples are lacking, however, and the listing itself is missing a few commands. The MySQL website is a much better source of information.

It briefly touches on installing MySQL.