I am absolutely new to data warehousing development. With some experience in MS SQL Server and SQL Server BI tools, i decided to buy this book because my company wants to build a new DW. I started reading this book and honestly i was lost and wasn't getting anywhere. Its not a bad book, but not for beginners. Its more of a theoretical approach to building data warehouses and very less practical. E.g. the core component of DW, the ETL development talks about ETL in words with no step by step guidance on building the packages and refers to another book(some ETL book) from the same authors for step by step guidance. So, i decided to look at another book, which is Vincent Rainardi "Building DataWarehouses. My experience says that this book by Vincent is an absolute gem. You wont be lost, will enjoy reading it and will follow what hes trying to say. Every single line makes sense and you read and realize oh wow, this is what it means? Even the ETL packages are explained and guided step by step. I would say this book "Building Datawarehouses is a much recommended buy for beginners.