Rating: 

MySQL books to date have tended to be reviews of basic installation and configuration. This books assumes you have covered that ground already, a welcome departure.

The book takes an intermedite-level approach to topics such as indexing, replication, backup, and tuning.

On the positive side, the book is engaging and very readable. Although the material is, by nature, theoretical, the authors have taken effort to attach real-world examples to the concepts they are covering.

On the negative side, there were a few typos and grammatical errors in the book, such as a diagram referring to the 'NBD' storage engine (should read BDB). Perhaps one more trip through the editing desk would have been helpful. However, the material itself is comprehensive and accurate, and is not affected by these minor slips.

Overall, the books is recommended for DBAs who do non-trivial work with MySQL.