1.6.3 Common Lisp Books

If you're not a programmer and you're trying to learn, many introductory Lisp books are available. However, we don't have any standout favorites. If you can't decide, try checking the Usenet news://comp.lang.lisp FAQ for recent recommendations.

If you are an experienced programmer in other languages but need to learn about Common Lisp, some books stand out:

ANSI Common Lisp, by Paul Graham

Introduces most of the language, though some parts (eg. CLOS) are covered only lightly.

On Lisp, by Paul Graham

An in-depth treatment of macros, but not recommended as a first Common Lisp book, since it is slightly pre-ANSI so you need to be on your guard against non-standard usages, and since it doesn't really even try to cover the language as a whole, focusing solely on macros. Downloadable from http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html.

Paradigms Of Artificial Intelligence Programming, by Peter Norvig

Good information on general Common Lisp programming, and many nontrivial examples. Whether or not your work is AI, it's a very good book to look at.

Object-Oriented Programming In Common Lisp, by Sonya Keene

None the books above emphasize CLOS, but this one does. Even if you're very knowledgeable about object oriented programming in the abstract, it's worth looking at this book if you want to do any OO in Common Lisp. Some abstractions in CLOS (especially multiple dispatch) go beyond anything you'll see in most OO systems, and there are a number of lesser differences as well. This book tends to help with the culture shock.

Art Of Metaobject Programming, by Gregor Kiczales et al.

Currently to prime source of information on the Common Lisp Metaobject Protocol, which is supported by SBCL. Section 2 (Chapers 5 and 6) are freely available at http://www.lisp.org/mop/.