For learning computer graphics programming through ray tracing something like Peter Shirleys "Raytracing in one weekend" and then onwards to Pharr, Jakob and Humphreys "Physically based rendering" would be a much better learning path. OpenGL and real time graphics are another beast entirely and to learn those well you must preferably work in the industry for a while (mainly because it's a fairly deep topic and you need professional level enthusiasm to progress much).
For hobbyist programmers Unity is a much better platform to get familiar with real time rendering than just taking the Red Book. I tried the Red Book route long time ago without much other domain understanding of computer graphics - not really the best way to move forward.
And yeah, I was familiar wirh Povray at that point and frankly - that knowledge did not help me much.