Look at example 81.1 (in the 10th edition). It lists 8 different activities, each with a duration and predecessors. (I will modify this later in the post to answer your question)
Activity, duration, predecessor
A, 0 days (start)
B, 7 days, A
C, 6 days, A
D, 3 days, B
E, 9 days, B & C
F, 1 day, D & E
G, 4 days, C
H, 0 (finish), F & G
(dammit, my spacing disappears for the network below, but compare to the solution given in the book)
Basically, you use the info to create the network as shown in the solution. Start at the top and work your way down. You know that only activity A is the start. It's completion is needed before B and C can start:
B
/
A
\
C
Now you see that activity D only depends on B:
B - D
/
A
\
C
Activity E depends on both B and C:
B - D
/ \
A E
\ /
C
Activity F depends on D and E:
B - D - F
/ \ /
A E
\ /
C
Activity G only depends on C:
B - D - F
/ \ /
A E
\ /
C ---- G
Then H depends on F and G:
B - D - F
/ \ / \
A E H
\ / /
C ---- G
To find the critical path (not considering Early start, early finish, late start, late finish), you have to add up the duration of each path. This network has 4 paths: ABDFH, ABEFH, ACEFH, and ACGH. Using the durations given in the table you get 0+7+3+1+0=11 days, 0+7+9+1+0=17 days, 0+6+9+1+0=16 days, and 0+6+4+0=10 days respectively. Thus giving you a critical path of ABEFH=17 days.
To answer you question on how delays factor in:
Now let's say that something happens that delays the start of activity C by 2 days. The duration for activity C is now 8 days (6 days original duration + 2 days delay). You would then have to re-calculate each path that depends on C (ACEFH, and ACGH). Recalculating these two gives you: 0+8+9+1+0=18 days, and 0+8+4+0=12 days respectively. If C has a delay of 2 days, you see that the critical path has shifted to the ACEFH path for 18 days. Despite the fact that one activity was delayed by 2 days, the critical path was only delayed by one.
Knowing this, you can then see that if ONLY activity G was delayed by 2 days (only affects path ACGH), it's path is extended to 14 days. When compared to the original critical path of ABEFH at 17 days, you see that the delay for G has no effect.
Does this help?