I also recommend this book. I'm quite a newbie to the finer and more sophisticated parts of php. I do feel very good about mySQL but the combination of these two is still hard.
'Granddad' wrote that because of the much typing, you'll learn a lot a bout the correct syntax. I do fully agree. I realize, that now I'm getting better seeing my typos and also I'm getting better having my code well organized. I thought it was well organized before, but it was not.
Buy it and learn.
Happy coding
Best Regards,
Hanne B. Stegemüller - Denmark