Yet another excellent WPF book is Essential Windows Presentation Foundation by Chris Anderson. Having read a number of WPF books, and already having considerable experience on the platform, it is hard for me to judge how well the book would fare for beginners, but my instinct is that some concepts are introduced without much explanation, which might make things difficult for a newbie.

Being one of the architects of WPF gives Mr. Anderson’s words more authority than other WPF books; even better, he uses his inside knowledge to help us understand some of the deep concepts of WPF. Of course, I found myself wanting more – more depth on the subjects that he did cover, and more breadth to help with the subjects he didn’t cover. I highly recommend this book, though you might wait to read it until you’ve made it through those of Petzold and Nathan.