There is an argument for including a guide to good layout with every DTP application sold. Would you attempt to drive a car, or fly a plane for the first time, having read only the owner's handbook? While the consequences of poor layout may be less catastrophic than a road accident the results can nonetheless be ugly and unpleasant.

Whatever your view, if such a style guide were mandatory, Looking Good in Printwould be an excellent candidate. Roger Parker and Patrick Berry have achieved the difficult task of covering all the important design fundamentals in a book probably no bigger than the manual that came with your DTP application, and certainly a lot more readable.

The emphasis throughout is on providing you with the information you need to design better-looking, and therefore more successful publications. If you read only the first two chapters you will be at least as well acquainted with the basic principles of page layout as most magazine designers appear to be.

Probably the best advice—not to go anywhere near your computer until you have sketched out a few ideas with pencil and paper—comes right at the start. Every aspect of theory and practice discussed is illustrated with clear examples which occupy at least half the available space. This means you can learn quickly—by seeing how it should be done, rather than reading about it.

The authors rightly recognise that good design, especially for beginners, is more often a case of not getting it wrong, than getting it right. So, for the crash course, once you've read the first two chapters, skip to the last two—Common Design Pitfallsand Redesign, which display in graphic detail all the ugly layout accidents just waiting to befall you and how to avoid them. —Ken McMahon

Good programming—which is to say, programming that yields both efficient code and a profitable life for the programmer—depends on not reinventing the wheel. If someone else has solved the problem you're facing (and someone almost always has), you'd be foolish to waste your energy figuring out your own solution. MySQL Cookbook presents solutions to scores of problems related to the MySQL database server. Readers stand a good chance of finding a ready-made solution to problems such as querying databases, validating and formatting data, importing and exporting values, and using advanced features like session tracking and transactions. Paul DuBois has done a great job assembling efficient solutions to common database programming problems, and teaches his readers a lot about MySQL and its attendant APIs in the process.

DuBois organizes his cookbook's recipes into sections on the problem, the solution stated simply, and the solution implemented in code and discussed. The implementation and discussion sections are the most valuable, as they contain the command sequences, code listings, and design explanations that can be transferred to outside projects. The main gripe readers will have about MySQL Cookbook is that the author, in his effort to cover the range of MySQL-friendly programming languages, uses different languages in his solutions to various problems. You'll see a Perl solution to one programming challenge (Perl, in fact, is the most frequently used language, followed by PHP), a Python fix for the next, and a Java sample after that. Readers have to hope that they find a solution in the language they're working with, or that they're able to transliterate the one DuBois has provided. It's usually not a big problem. —David Wall

Topics covered: How to make MySQL databases do your bidding—in terms of queries, table manipulation, data formatting, transactions, and Web interfaces—through the database server's command line interfaces and (more importantly) through the MySQL APIs of Perl, PHP, Java, and Python. Particularly excellent coverage deals with formatting dates and times, management of null values, string manipulation, and import/export techniques.