You might find the following suggested reading list useful:

Bragg, M. 2004 The Adventure of English, New York,

Sceptre Bryson, B. 2009 Mother Tongue, London, Penguin Books

Cruse, A. 2004 Meaning in Language: an Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Crystal, D. 2003 The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,

Crystal, D. 2nd edition 2002, The English Language: A Guided Tour of the Language, London, Penguin Books

Crystal, D. 2005, How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning and Languages Live or Die, New York, Penguin

Crystal, D. 1996, Discover Grammar, London, Longman

Crystal, D. 2009, Txting: the gr8 db8, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Thorne, S. 1997, Mastering Advanced English Language, Basingstoke, and Palgrave

Truss, L. Paperback edition, 2009, Eats, Shoots and Leaves, London, Fourth Estate

The Oxford English Dictionary The Use of English, Randolph Quirk. Published by Longmans. A History of English, Albert C Baugh. Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul. Roget’s Thesaurus of English Word and Phrases. Published by Penguin. Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson. Published by Penguin Books.

A Comprehensive Grammar of the English language, Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, Jan Svartvik. Published by Longmans.

The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, Douglas Biber, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, Edward Finegan. Published by Longmans.

The Cambridge History of the English Language, Richard M Hogg. Published by Cambridge University Press. The Cambridge Guide to English Usage, Pam Peters. Published by Cambridge University Press. The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language, David Crystal. Published by Cambridge University Press. Discover Grammar, David Crystal. Published by Longmans.