100% agree with the recommendation on the Mastering Bitcoin book by Andreas Antonopoulos. I found it to be indispensable in understanding the foundational ideas. Even if you don't go through with the coding side, there is still tremendous value in seeing how public/private keys work in a wallet.
As far as I'm concerned, it's THE book worth reading because it is edited, organized, and clear. He develops the concepts well. And these concepts often expand beyond Bitcoin and into an blockchain.
If you're going go buy anything, buy that book -- the GitHub repo will give you a good taste of what we're talking about.
yep the book is key to understanding blockchain