One of my favorite instructional book series is the 1970's-era Time-Life Library of Photography. Silver-and-black hardbound books, in an homage to B&W film I think, this series of books is one I have read multiple times. It has a lot of books, like The Camera, Light and Film, Special Problems, The Studio, Photojournalism, The Great Themes, Color, and others. Each book takes you through its subject in pretty good detail, and the books were written in a collaborative style, with multiple authors and editors for each book.
Many libraries across the USA have these books. What is nice about them is that they are not like "modern" photography books, which are often very recipe-like, with "do this, do this,do this", and with reference to specific software and specific digital cameras--these are books about the underlying fundamentals and principles of photography,and they explore aspects of each sub-section very deeply and also very broadly,if that makes sense. I would search out some of these books and read at least five of the series. What's nice is that these books show works by masters of the past,and were put together by the editors of the Time and Life magazines, and thus by people with decades' worth of experience, and not just one single author. A lot of today's books are so specific they seem to lose relevance once the next batch of software comes out--these books are not like that.