Yes, that book is definately worth its price. It enlightened me several issues possible with ligtnings and has also includes descriptions of some cool thing, like HDRI, global illumination algorithms, texturing!!!.

Genereally it does not give you program specific solutions, or step-by-step tutorials, etc.. but gives you a nice general overview of lots of 3d related topics, but takes the lightning and related topics much deeper.

I suggest you to read the amazon.com reviews too and may check also the Digital Textureing and Painting from that publisher.

bye,
Bacizone