An acquaintance of mine who goes by the Net name of Dragonbones (because of his interest in Chinese oracle bones, of course) recently responded to a query on Forumosa on works on the history and background of Chinese characters.

I assume you want to read a non-scholarly introduction, in English. Unfortunately, many mass-marketed books on this topic (nicely produced coffee table books or cartoon-illustrated paperbacks) are full of erroneous general characterizations of the language, and the etymologies of individual characters are based on out-of-date works, failing to incorporate the last 100 years of scholarship and bronze and oracle bone research, or are cartoon-illustrated spin-ups of folk etymology, weaving enjoyable but VERY often inaccurate stories which seem suitable only ideal for teaching children, or for mnemonic purposes.

Other works, by expert paleographers, are too technical for the laity, and the best information on individual characters is scattered throughout hundreds of journal articles, conference papers or monographs, or expensive scholarly books in Chinese. As a result, it’s hard to recommend good books to you.

After praising The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, which would also be my recommendation for the book to read first, he provides a list of other books:

• for individual etymologies: 謝光輝 Xìe Guānghuī Ed., (1997). The Composition of Common Chinese Characters: An Illustrated Account
• for an introduction to oracle bones: Keightley, David N. (1978). Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China
• early pottery inscriptions: Woon, Wee Lee (1987). Chinese Writing: Its Origin and Evolution
• 裘錫圭 Qiú Xīguī (2000). Chinese Writing. Translation of 文字學概論 by Gilbert L. Mattos and Jerry Norman

Dragonbones also cautions against some works:

• Harbaugh, Rick (1998). Chinese Characters: a Genealogy and Dictionary (This is the work that forms the basis of the popular Zhongwen.com Web site.)
• 李乐毅 Lǐ Lèyì, Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases, 汉字演变五百例
• Peng, Tan Huay (1980). Fun with Chinese Characters
• Wáng Hóngyuán (1993). 漢字字源入門 The Origins of Chinese Characters
• Wieger, Dr. L., S.J. (1927) Chinese Characters: Their Origin, Etymology, History, Classification and Signification
• Wilder, G.D. & Ingram, J.H. (1974 reprint of 1934 2nd ed.) Analysis of Chinese Characters
• anything by 許進雄 Xu Jìnxióng (James Chin-hsiung Hsu)

For comments on each of these works, see Dragonbones’ original post.

Also, Pinyin Info offers a number of readings related to this topic.