Best LINQ Book

What LINQ Is

LINQ stands for Language-Integrated Query, developed by Microsoft is a technology to query and update data sources in-memory. LINQ introduces standard, easily-learned patterns for querying and updating data, and the technology can be extended to support potentially any kind of data store. LINQ was introduced as a part of .NET Framework in .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008. Today, LINQ has become one of the most common ways to access data in .NET framework.

In this article, I will list some useful resource on LINQ that you can get started right away. After that, I list two books that are sufficient to learn LINQ.

Where can I learn LINQ

There are many online resources to learn LINQ including MSDN. C# Corner website has close to 400 articles, tutorials, and blogs on LINQ that you may browser here. I highly recommend to start here: 

• Introduction To LINQ
• LINQ Tutorial: Part 1
• Chapter 1: Hello LINQ
• Data Binding using LINQ to SQL in C#
• Parallel Extension to LINQ
• Select Items with Where in LINQ and C#
• Reading and Writing XML using XLinq
• Joins Using LINQ in C# 

And many more articles here on C# Corner LINQ section.

What are the best books on LINQ

To learn LINQ, you really need one book, Essential LINQ. Syncfusion also has a free book available on LINQ that is listed below.

Essential LINQ 1st Edition

by Charlie Calvert, Dinesh Kulkarni

LINQ is one of Microsoft’s most exciting, powerful new development technologies. Essential LINQ is the first LINQ book written by leading members of Microsoft’s LINQ and C# teams. Writing for architects, developers, and development managers, these Microsoft insiders share their intimate understanding of LINQ, revealing new patterns and best practices for getting the most out of it.

Calvert and Kulkarni begin by clearly explaining how LINQ resolves the long-time “impedance mismatch” between object-oriented code and relational databases. Next, they show how LINQ integrates querying into C# as a “first-class citizen.” Using realistic code examples, they show how LINQ provides a strongly typed, IntelliSense-aware technology for working with data from any source, including SQL databases, XML files, and generic data structures.

Calvert and Kulkarni carefully explain LINQ’s transformative, composable, and declarative capabilities. By fully illuminating these three concepts, the authors allow developers to discover LINQ’s full power. In addition to covering core concepts and hands-on LINQ development in C# with LINQ to Objects, LINQ to XML, LINQ to SQL, and LINQ to Entities, they also present advanced topics and new LINQ implementations developed by the LINQ community.

This book 

• Explains the entire lifecycle of a LINQ project: design, development, debugging, and much more
• Teaches LINQ from both a practical and theoretical perspective
• Leverages C# language features that simplify LINQ development
• Offers developers powerful LINQ query expressions to perform virtually any data-related task
• Teaches how to query SQL databases for objects and how to modify those objects
• Demonstrates effective use stored procedures and database functions with LINQ
• Shows how to add business logic that reflects the specific requirements of your organization
• Teaches developers to create, query, and transform XML data with LINQ
• Shows how to transform object, relational, and XML data between each other
• Offers best patterns and practices for writing robust, easy-to-maintain LINQ code 

LINQ Succinctly

Learn to use LINQ to simplify the process of coding and querying in C# and Visual Basic. LINQ Succinctly will guide you through the process, from conceptual understanding to practical implementation. With the help of author Jason Roberts, you will be streamlining your coding and querying practices in no time.

Table of Contents 

• LINQ Fundamentals
• Fluent and Query Expression Styles
• LINQ Query Operators
• LINQ to XML
• Interpreted Queries
• Parallel LINQ
• LINQ Tools and Resources