I want to make friends with developers and learn how to program a blockchain. I don't want to just learn  how to program smart contracts.  I want to learn everything necessary to understand the most robust blockchain/distributed-ledger technologies.
Does anyone know a good book to pick up? I have a long history of web development/javascript. I've had a really hard time searching for this.
I need to learn because I have a unique idea I want to implement on a dead coin.