Start with high-confidence word origins books, then narrow by subgenre or adjacent topics.
A Hog on Ice
Charles E. Funk
Aspire
Kevin Hall
The Highly Selective Dictionary for the Extraordinarily Literate
Eugene Ehrlich
Like
Megan C. Reynolds
Made in America
Bill Bryson
The Mother Tongue
An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language
Walter W. Skeat
Foyle's Philavery
Christopher Foyle
Mother Tongue
Beth Hicks, Jenni Nuttall
Algospeak
Adam Aleksic
Words From Hell
Jess Zafarris
Phraseology
Barbara Ann Kipfer PhD, Barbara Ann Kipfer
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue
John McWhorter
How to Speak Brit
Christopher J. Moore
Why Q Needs U
Danny Bate
On Cussing
Katherine Dunn
Proto
Laura Spinney
