Book review column

Welcome to the new Book Review Column of SIGMOD RECORD. In this column we plan to regularly feature reviews on books of general interest to the SIGMOD community. Book review columns have been running successfully for other special interest groups for many years providing a substantial added value to the respective communities. When talking to the editor of SIGMOD RECORD, Ling Liu, I found the idea of a book review column immediately interesting and challenging. Since I am currently building up a small library for my new lab at EPFL this activity appeared also to be very timely for me.