Start with high-confidence semantics books, then narrow by subgenre or adjacent topics.
Language in Thought and Action
S.I. Hayakawa, Alan R. Hayakawa
Meaning of Meaning
C. K. Ogden, I. A. Richards
Linguistics and Philosophy
Etienne Gilson
Tractatus Logico-philosophicus
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Introduction to Pragmatics
Betty J. Birner
Cognitive Linguistics and Humor Research
Geert Brône, Kurt Feyaerts
The Semantics of Derivational Morphology
Sven Kotowski, Ingo Plag
