Books
There are loads of books out there on the market, so I'll try to share some information about books that I personally like.
SQL Server Execution Plans (Grant Fritchey)
Although I would really love an even more technical book on execution plans, this is probably the best source to understand what SQL Server is really doing behind the scene. The book is well written and easy to follow with rather good examples. Unfortunately, the index of this book is pretty poor. I know for instance that I have read something about the lazy spool operator, but there is no mention of lazy spool in the index, as this is one form of table spools. Neverhteless, I really do recommend this book as it is a brilliant introduction to execution plans. It's well worth the list price of $29.99.
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Internals (Kalen Delaney (editor))
If you want to know how each bits and pieces of SQL Server is tied together, this is the book. For its technical level it is farily easy to read. The book covers a lot of interresting information about how data is organized in both the data files and in the indexes. There is also a whole chapter on logging and recovery, which should come handy for virtually any DBA. As it perhaps is the most technically advanced book on SQL Server available, it is welll worth $59.99.
Applied Mathermatics for Database Professionals (de Haan; Koppelaars)
I've met a lot of database developers and database administrators who find mathematics boring. To be quite honest, I don't know if they would like it any better after reading this book, but at least it is a book about just the (advanced) mathematics that is needed as a database professional. So, forget derication, integration and spanning trees and welcome set theory, logic and relations. If you're interrested in the theory behind what you're doing, this book might be the one for you. The list price is $54.99
