The Manga Guide to Databases—New from No Starch Press
Adorable Fairy Teaches How to Design and Manage Databases

San Francisco, CA, January 22, 2009—The lovely Princess Ruruna has a problem: her fruit-selling kingdom is a tangle of conflicting and duplicated data, and it has become really hard to sort the melons from the apples and strawberries. But what can she do? Why, build a relational database of course, with the help of Tico, the magical database fairy.

So begins The Manga Guide to Databases (No Starch Press, January 2009, 224 pp, ISBN 9781593271909), one in a series of technical EduManga titles from geek entertainment publisher No Starch Press. In this volume, readers tag along as Ruruna learns how databases work—and the meaning of terms like schema, key, normalization, and transaction.

"Databases are essential for any modern IT project, but they can be really intimidating for non-specialists," said No Starch Press founder William Pollock. "The wonderful thing about The Manga Guide to Databases, and all of the books in this series, is that the manga story carries the reader through the book, and the learning happens almost effortlessly. Databases are presented as something fun, not something dreadful. Even pure manga fans approve of the books' shoujo-style manga."

Guided by the book's authentic manga and Tico the database fairy's real-life examples, readers learn how to:

• Extract data from a relational database using set and relational operations
• Apply the entity-relationship model to accurately represent their data
• Set user permissions and use transactions and locks to prevent conflicting data
• Use SQL to update or retrieve data and create reports

Readers will even explore advanced topics like security, indexing, disaster recovery, and replication. Co-published with scientific and technical publisher Ohmsha, Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan, The Manga Guide to Databases brings the magic of databases to readers everywhere.

For more information, to schedule an interview, or to request a review copy of The Manga Guide to Databases, contact Travis Peterson at No Starch Press ([email protected], +1.415.863.9900, x300), or visit www.nostarch.com.

About the Author
Mana Takahashi is a graduate of the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Economics in Tokyo, Japan. She is an active technical writer and has published a number of books on topics such as Java, C, XML, Information Engineering, and System Administration.

Sample pages from The Manga Guide to Databases:

Additional Resources
Excerpt from Chapter 2: "What is a Relational Database?" (PDF)
Table of contents overview
Detailed table of contents (PDF)
Index (PDF)
Large cover image

The Manga Guide to Databases
by Mana Takahashi, Shoko Azuma, and Trend-pro Co., Ltd.
January 2009, 224 pp
ISBN 9781593271909, $19.95 USD
[email protected]
1-800-998-9938
1-707-827-7000

Available in fine bookstores everywhere, from www.oreilly.com/nostarch, or directly from No Starch Press (www.nostarch.com, [email protected], +1.415.863.9900).

About the Manga Guide Series
The Manga Guides cover a multitude of essential scientific and technical subjects like statistics, physics, molecular biology, calculus, electricity, and relativity. Each guide is written by a scientist or mathematician with expertise in the field and illustrated by a professional manga artist and scenario writer, ensuring the authenticity readers demand. The first two titles in the series, The Manga Guide to Statistics (9781593271893, November 2008) and The Manga Guide to Databases (9781593271909, January 2009), will be followed by The Manga Guide to Electricity (9781593271978, March 2009), The Manga Guide to Physics (9781593271961, April 2009), and The Manga Guide to Calculus (9781593271947, June 2009). No Starch Press projects at least eight titles in this new series by the end of 2009.

About No Starch Press
Founded in 1994, No Starch Press is one of the few remaining independent technical book publishers. We publish the finest in geek entertainment—unique books on technology, with a focus on Open Source, security, hacking, programming, alternative operating systems, and LEGO. Our titles have personality, our authors are passionate, and our books tackle topics that people care about. See www.nostarch.com for a complete catalog.

About Ohmsha
Founded in 1914, Ohmsha, Ltd. is a science and engineering book publisher based in Japan. In addition to publishing dozens of titles a year in Japan, Ohmsha is also active in foreign projects, including co-publications with major publishers in Europe, North America, and Asia, and joint ventures with major international publishers. With the aim of contributing to the development and progress of science and technology in Japan, Ohmsha established The Promotion Foundation for Electrical Science and Engineering in 1951; through this foundation, the OHM Technology Award is given every year to those who have made significant contributions to the field of electrical engineering.

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