i'm still a beginner so i bought two books. One was inside lightwave and the other lightwave primer
first i got inside lightwave but it was too difficult to start with (afcourse they mention it somewhere on page 3 and not on the cover that you got to have some knowledge about lightwave).
So i bought primer just to get into things and now i continue with inside lightwave.
personally i think it's a very good book. And it's very recomended to use it as a reference guide too.
The tutorials are also very good (but sometimes complicated and detailed like hell). But maybe that's why almost every lightwave user can use this book.
For a beginner it's very chalenging to complete the tutorials but also for a intermediate user it's usefull.
btw i just finished a tutorial about a skyscraper and i'll post some pictures so you can get an idea

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http://forum.simplylightwave.com/sho...1010#post21010)