The dragon book is mentioned often, but usually only as "this book covers these things," which isn't really a recommendation, only a comment. Is the book actually good? Can you recommend it?
Yes, it is a great book. Trust me. If you are scared by the lexing and parsing algorithms, skip them because it is highly unlikely you will write them on your own. You don't need to refer to other sources to implement your own language with it.
It is good. I had a dated copy, but a lot of what it talked about was still applicable to learning how to implement a basic programming language.