Bulk create Nodes from SQL
Possible, yes.  Recommended, no.  I do a lot of importing from outside sources, and would never entertain using direct SQL INSERT statements. 

I would export your existing database in another format, and pursue one of standard approaches.

The easiest is probably Feeds.  In your case, I would export as CSV, and then use the CVS imported built into feeds.  Based on your description, it sounds like you have a one-to-one mapping, and the CSV importer is good for this.

The Migrate module can also handle moving data from one source into Drupal.  

A more robust solution would be to create a custom importer, build up a $node, and then use node_save.  There are a lot of nuances with this, and this is not a good approach unless you are familiar with the Drupal API already.