I am not affiliated with the book in any way, but I have read it and all of the other Lightwave books currently available (all 2 of them). This book is by far the best written and illustrated, and the sample models included with it are also of good quality.
Don't be daunted by the size of the book - it is not one of those books that talks to you like a child for the first 200 pages and then spoon feeds you information for the next 800 pages. It is written like a reference, that is, there is useful information on almost every page.
It is a very comprehensive book, with discussions of architectural modeling, image compositing, and rigging. It even has a chapter devoted to the basic concepts of CG filmmaking, a topic that is often overlooked in texts. The only tutorial I couldn't make work is the one on UV mapping, which really is a problem with Lightwave, not the book itself.
Oh, and the hideous creature on the cover scares my kids...