Also good: "The Implementation of Lua 5.0" (<a href="http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/~lhf/ftp/doc/sblp2005.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/~lhf/ftp/doc/sblp2005.pdf</a>).<p>Past discussion: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=617278" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=617278</a><p>If you want to learn Lua, Ierusalimschy's _Programming in Lua_ (<a href="http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/pil2/" rel="nofollow">http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/pil2/</a>) is by far the best book. Lua is one of my favorite languages. While it's good on its own, you'll get a <i>lot</i> more out of it if you're comfortable with C. Lua+C is an excellent combination.