Ch. 1. An introduction to Hibernate 3 -- Ch. 2. Integrating and configuring Hibernate -- Ch. 3. Building a simple application -- Ch. 4. The persistence life cycle -- Ch. 5. An overview of mapping -- Ch. 6. Mapping with annotations -- Ch. 7. Creating mappings with Hibernate XML files -- Ch. 8. Using the session -- Ch. 9. Searches and queries -- Ch. 10. Advanced queries using criteria -- Ch. 11. Filtering the results of searches.

Beginning Hibernate is ideal if you're experienced in Java with databases (the traditional, or connected, approach), but are new to open source lightweight Hibernate--the most popular de facto object-relational mapping and database-oriented application development framework. This book packs in information about the release of the Hibernate 3.2.x persistence layer and provides a clear introduction to the current standard for object-relational persistence in Java. Experienced author Dave Minter and contributor Jeff Linwood provide more in-depth examples than any other books for Hibernate beginners. The authors also present material in a lively, example-based mannernot in a dry, theoretical, hard-to-read fashion. And since the book keeps its focus on Hibernate without wasting time on nonessential third-party tools, you'll be able to immediately start building transaction-based engines and applications.