I learnt the basics of compilers from Game Scripting Mastery. I wasn't trying to write a compiler for game scripts, I'd just read it was a very practical (Light on theory) book, and my naive younger self thought this would be a good thing.

I'd also recommend Ghuloum's An Incremental Approach to Compiler Construction, and the specially the accompanying tutorial: http://web.archive.org/web/20091005152403/http://www.cs.indi...

I never got far in Lisp in Small Pieces or the Essentials of Programming Languages, I mostly figured things out as I went along.