Q:

SQL for Oracle command

MYSQL: 
SELECT * FROM book ORDER BY $sidx $sord LIMIT $start , $limit;

How do I turn this into Oracle?

A:

You have to use rownum property, BUT you have to apply it to the result set already ordered AND you need to pass it from the inner query (credit to Bob Jarvis and Daniel Hilgarth: check their explanations and links given in comments as well). It should be something like this:
SELECT * FROM
(SELECT b.*, rownum as row_num FROM book b ORDER by $sidx $sord)
WHERE row_num BETWEEN $start AND $start + $limit;

