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I enjoyed SQL Antipatterns by Bill Karwin. Very easy to read and offers some practical approaches to common issues.

Bill Karwin's "SQL Anti-Patterns Strike Back" presentation on Slideshare.com presentation is worth checking out -- it's 250 slides long, covers 4 kinds of anti-patterns (in queries, DB creation and the design of both DBs and applications). And he goes through actual code examples.

Check it out here:

http://www.slideshare.net/billkarwin/sql-antipatterns-strike...

A little theory goes a long way in SQL.

Pick books focusing to SQL, not on databases overall.

Most database textbooks (Date, Ramakrishnan & Gehrke) cover a lot of ground, rather than just the language.

I'd recommend Head First SQL (http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfsql/). I started on that book with no real coding knowledge whatsoever (except a long-forgotten Java class that I took circa 1996). Plugging away on that book a few hours a week for a few months taught me enough SQL to get my foot in the door to a new career.

Ben Forta's Teach Yourself SQL in 10 minutes http://www.forta.com/books/0672336073/