This must be the hardest book I've ever tried to read and I've tried to read it a number of times before now. The book is a mix of high level history of OO databases; samples of UML, SQLJ, etc. and case studies. I think it is aimed at people with a lot of OO and relational database knowledge who want to turn their hands to OO databases.

There are chapters on different databases, i.e. Jasmine and Oracle and other chapters that show code for accessing an Oracle database using SQLJ and Java. The case studies range from genetics to maps to railways.

The book is hardback which makes it a nice looking book. It is very well written and if you are looking for a detailed overview of OO databases then this is a good book. If like me, you're more interested in designing and coding OO databases this book is a hard slog but worth it for the history.