I bot the book, found some basic modeling tutorials online, was just following the proceedures that the modeler did and explained. . .
Rule number on in 3d modelin that imna tell ya would probably be, NEVER GIVE up
Rule number 2 in 3ds max that imna tell ya will be, SAVE ur work every time with DIFFERENT NAME when u think u r going wrong direction
Rule number 3, be sure u r having a powerful computer, with a lot of RAM nd nice graphic card, BECAUSE, if later on when u become mid-pro, u wont like of waiting for rendering and u'd probably give up, nd get tired, nd beside that ur PC may hang. . .
Rule number 4, if u r an artist nd good in imagining the 3d concepts then u better create ur way of modeling, from scratch till rendering, that u think its easier for u and its more obvious than other animater did nd explained, then stick to ur method
thats it i guess
try to search online for free 3ds max online tutorials, u'd find bunch of em, as i did. . .
so if u r desperate, of learnin 3ds max then any tutorial, books, dvds will work, bt try to start from scratch if u r new to it, coz u don wanna give up by starting doing face modeling which has 10000000 polys nd other factors that would let ya down. . .
Good luck kiddo