This is a collection of Oracle / Unix books which are highly recommended.

	HOWTO Secure and Audit Oracle 10g and 11g Ron Ben Natan I can really recommend this book to anybody who is interested in making Oracle database systems more secure and to get an overview of all the security features and possibilities of current Oracle database releases. It covers versions 10g and 11g and contains not only excellent explanations of the different features but also practical examples of how to implement them. A highlight of the book is the focus on consequences of different features on database performance. The reader can really profit from the authors expertise in this area of technology.
	Expert Oracle JDBC Programming R.M. Menon For me personally, the book served its purpose of giving me a very good picture of how the Oracle database can be used by Java Applications using JDBC connectivity. When discussing with Java developers about Oracle, it is important to be familiar with the concepts of JDBC and how they can be implemented in Java. The book has helped me changing the perspective from the database administrators point of view to the java developers angle. The author explains the 4 different types of JDBC Drivers, why it is a good idea to turn Autocommit off, etc. but perhaps the most basic but essential information given in the book is the distinction between the Statement and the PreparedStatement Interface and a clear recommendation to NOT use Statement class in production code. Moreover, the standard update batching as well as Oracle update batching is introduced with the recommendation to prefer the oracle implementation for performance reasons. Apart from that, the more advanced features Statement Caching as well as Connection Pooling and Caching were of most interest to me. Although it did not make a java developer out of me, I could use the sample code to get familiar with the concepts. Other than that, the book is great as a reference to come back to different topics if need arises. I can recommend this book to any Oracle database administrator, who wants to understand, how Java Applications use JDBC to interact with the database. On the other hand, it is a must-read for any Java Developer working with Oracle JDBC. Beware that this is not a book to learn Java, but specifically for understanding Oracle database interaction with JDBC.
	Troubleshooting Oracle Performance Christian Antognini This book is exremely useful for Oracle Administrators and Developers alike. It is easy to understand and contains valuable information for everybody interested in understanding Oracle performance issues. The author demonstrates an excellent method to identify wrong Optimizer estimates that lead to suboptimal execution plans. The author shares dozens of “best-practices” and advices from his personal consulting experience as well es detailed information which is not available in Oracle documentation. My personal highlight was the introduction to a sophisticated, yet easy-to-use SQL Trace Analyzer TVD$XTAT which overcomes the limits of tkprof for SQL Response Time Analysis. This book is a must-have for every Oracle professional.
	Oracle Automatic Storage Management Vengurlekar, Vallath, Long At the time of the release of this book, it was the only book available on the topic of ASM. I contains all the necessary information in order understand and implement ASM setups.
	Pro Oracle Database 10g RAC on Linux Julian Dyke, Steve Shaw The book does an excellent job of presenting detailed information on how to configure Linux in order to run Oracle Real Application Cluster Databases. Additionally, it contains very interesting information about Benchmarking (TPC) Concepts as well as Storage Fundamentals.
	Oracle Database 10g – RMAN Backup & Recovery Hart, Freeman Backup & Recovery is one of the most important topics when working with production databases. This book is in my opinion the best book in order to understand RMAN Backup and Recovery concepts as well as practical examples.
	Cost Based Oracle Fundamentals Jonathan Lewis Cost Based Fundamentals is currently the most detailed printed information about how the Oracle core component, the query optimizer, works. Although sometimes scientifc, the author explains basic concepts of how the query optimizer costs different access operations and join methods. I am looking forward to reading the next book of Jonathan Lewis.
	Effective Oracle by Design Tom Kyte Effective Oracle by Design written by Tom Kyte is a collection of techniques in order to design databases for scalability. It not only explains different features, e.g. Shared Servers, but also gives recommendations of when and when not to use it. I would recommend it to any DBA.
	Expert Oracle Database Architecture Tom Kyte Expert Database Architecture covers in very detailed manner the key concepts of Oracle databases: concurrency (e.g. read consistency), transaction management, undo, redo.
	Optimizing Oracle Performance Cary Millsap, Jeff Holt This book marks a new era in Oracle Performance Management. The authors explain the concept of Method-R, a method of focusing only on response time of the most problematic business process. By collecting properly scoped 10046 trace data, performance analysts can dramatically improve performance with the maximum effect for the business.
	Oracle Replication Karam, Garmany, Burleson I found this book while researching “Advanced Replication”. Although the technology is likely to be replaced by Oracle Streams, it was interesting to see some basic example setups for all kinds of replication needs. Please note: It seems that although I have the second edition version (Dec 2006), there is only first edition available on Amazon.
	Oracle Security in der Praxis Haas Security ist ein oftmals vernachlässigter Bereich von Oracle Datenbanken. Dabei wären die Möglichkeiten extrem vielfältig. Das Buch illustriert die verschiedenen Möglichkeiten, die Datenbanken mit verschiedenen Features zu sichern.
	hp-ux internals cooper, moore The book explains in a very deep technical way how the hp-ux operating system works. What was especially interesting for me was the section about memory management.
	Practical Oracle 8i Jonathan Lewis Although the book does not cover any recent release, most of the information is still valuable in order to build efficient databases. It covers physical data structures (tables, indexes, IOTs, partitioning, views) as well as parallel query.
	Oracle Insights – Tales of the Oak Table The book is in my opinion more entertaining than informative. It contains multiple chapters each written by a different Oracle expert. This alone should be reason enough to get it.
	System Performance Tuning The book focuses mainly on Sun Solaris (up to 8 ) and Linux and contains chapters for every part of the Performance Tuning areas: CPU, RAM, IO (Storage, Disks), Network, etc.
	Oracle Wait Interface: A Practical Guide to Performance Diagnostics & Tuning The Oracle Wait Interface is one most important features. The book explains the most important wait events, shows SQL statement for further diagnosing the reasons of the wait events and provides recommendations for reducing the occurrance of wait events.
	Oracle Database 10g – Real Application Clusters Handbook The book is in my opinion currently the best book about the internals of RAC.