Hibernate in Action

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View books by Patrick Peak, Nick Heudecker.

Way too basic - Rated
I have to disagree with all other reviews on this book so far. We have two copies in our office, and while I was new to Hibernate, they provided valuable information. However, the examples are overly simple, and as soon as you want to go into any detail, you are out of luck with this book

Very Useful Book - Rated
We're using NHibernate on the project i'm working on and this book has been a big help in letting me understand both the theory and the usage of NHibernate.

I should also say that if your going to use NHibernate you'll need a book like this as the quality of the NHibernate documentation and error messages is appalling.

Best book on Hibernate - Rated
This is the best book on hibernate. Covers all the fundamental concepts required to get you started and then covers the hibernate's features in detail. If you are working on hibernate, buy this book. It is worth its money.

Excellent book... - Rated
I read this book when I was in quite a hurry to apply hibernate. I basically read it in all kinds of ways like one chapter at a time and also jumping from section to section in almost random order. What I found was that the book is very clearly written (the authors clearly explain the concepts behind hibernate). Also, the book is useful both for reading front to cover but also extremely useful as a reference. Very well structured and readable.

Great book - Rated
My review-in-three-words is: great. Get it.
Hibernate and Object/Relational Mapping are very complex subjects, yet Christian Bauer and Gavin King with this book are able to explain them in a so easy and clear way. The first five chapter in particular are really well-written, so that you can start using Hibernate in no time. With chapter six the complexity raises, but it is unavoidable since they start talking about complex mappings and query optimizations.
My personal suggestion to the reader is: at first, read the first five chapters; then, start writing your application with Hibernate; use the other chapters as a reference when you experience some problems while mapping complex class associations, or if you want to refactor/optimize your code.
I really appreciate the fact that the authors put a great effort in explaining not only the tool itself, but also the underlying concepts of ORM and database in general. So, even if you have only a basic knowledge of database, you will be able to understand the book.
Two others goodies: chapter 9 has some great sections explaining who to write code using tools like Middlegen and XDoclet; on Appendix B you can find a nice description of "ORM implementation strategies".