1. Joseph Hellerstein and Michael Stonebraker. The Anatomy of a Database System. In Red Book (4th ed). Focus on Sections 1-4 and skim the rest.
The following paper is a very short read: Michael Stonebraker. Operating System Support for Database Management. Communications of the ACM. Vol 24. Number 7. July 1981. Also in Red Book (3rd ed and 4th ed).