I successfully got through Tom Millers first 7 chapters of the “Managed DirectX 9: Graphics and Game Programming“ book.  I found that I had to piece together a lot of missing information. Tom often provides you with examples and best practices but leaves out beginner information. This book is for someone already familiar with 3D programming at a beginner level  and not for someone who knows absolutely nothing about 3D programming. So, in order to adjust for my lack of information concerning basic 3D game programming, I went to Amazon and found a lot of positive reviews about the “Beginning .NET Game Programming in C#“ by David Weller  
The reviews were correct. This is the book that you want to start with. Once you get through this book, then I would look into using Tom's book. David's book tells you exactly what and why he is doing what he is doing. He explains what methods to call and why and how to use these methods.  He covers the basic elementary topics in enough detail so that when you move on to Tom's book, you will understand exactly what is being discussed. He also has an exercise which is designed to bring all of the pieces together. This is a well structured book designed for beginners in 3D graphic programming.