I’ve some time on my hands (cut in work hours etc.) and have a good level of computer literacy and experience with Excel, Word etc. but I’d like to get a bit more of a handle on Microsoft Access (I have 2007). There are some useful tutorials for beginners on Microsoft’s Office website but I was wondering where to go from there. I tend to like books as a way of learning and I don’t know if there are any good ones out there.

Presumably skills picked up with Access will be transferable to other systems so it could be time well spent.

Forget Access, its the pits.
Your’d be better off learning MySql or MS-SQL Express.

If you can, get the 2010 version. The whole office 2010 package is nicer and Access 2010 lets you create runtime packages where the end user doesn’t need to have full Access installed

The litwin/Getz/gunderloy books were good on earlier versions. See if there is an up to date version available

I’m afraid that I can’t afford to upgrade to 2010. There is an Access 2007 runtime package so it looks as if 2007 can do this too, allow I suspect that I’m a long way off producing anything useful. I’ll have a look around and see what resources are available. I don’t think that I’m ever going to be ‘good’ in terms of producing quality databases (or spreadsheets) but it’s nice to have a useable skillset.

I find myself in a similar position, trying to write something for work. I have bought

I assume there is on 07 version too? It seems quite a good starting point and is written in a not too patronising style.