The Land of Lisp
This book comes up in #lisp on freenode every so often, and the channel is generally split on whether or not to recommend it.  I generally do.<p>It&#x27;s fun and lighthearted.  Using games as a medium to teach the language is something some people enjoy, and is a lot less dry than most programming books.<p>It avoids taking sides on the editor war, by just ignoring it altogether and <i>teaching Lisp</i>.  This is refreshing compared to most books, which hit you with the Emacs cinderblock to the face right in the preface.<p>It also stays away from ASDF and Quicklisp and even the entire package system in general, which is a lot of extra complexity that can be overwhelming to beginners at first (though they&#x27;ll eventually need to learn about this if they want to continue using Common Lisp).<p>The main issue people have with the book is that it uses CLISP-specific code in a few places.  CLISP&#x27;s last release was seven years ago, and because it hasn&#x27;t really been maintained it&#x27;s beginning to bitrot.  Folks in #lisp generally don&#x27;t recommend using CLISP these days, instead recommending actively-maintained implementations like SBCL, CCL, ECL, ABCL, etc.<p>Using CLISP-specific code does allow the book to sidestep the issue of the library ecosystem, which is a plus.  But a revamped version (or even a collection of errata) that ported the CLISP bits to a maintained implementation would make it a lot easier to recommend these days.