heh i read that book and also sams teach yourself game programming in 24 hours. honestly i would say it doesn't take long to make a functioning program. im mean the hello world is technically a program. but i know what you mean and i would say more than a month because theres no doub after you've read the book you'll go back and look at some things like i did. i think i made my first program in about 3 weeks(calculated the probability of 1,2, or 3 dice landing on a certain number for x amount of times being rolled). it took me a while because i had to keep looking back to see how to put in the formulas and everything. but hang in there and you'll be ok

Well, if you want, I could cook up a console game, and you could learn from that.

HEy,are you talking about the "windows game programming in 24 hours"?
I think that book's writer was not at all serious about windows programming somehow he became serious after playing nintendo maybe i can't remember what was it hahaha..Would you mind telling me about your ability to create window games? Like, is it possible to make 3d games after learning from that book and learning c++?

No. You can't pick up programming skills from books, and games(especially 3D) require lots of programming skills.