LISPcraft

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Robert Wilensky. LISPcraft. W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-95442-0. 1984.

Hard to know whether to include this as an introduction or collection of applications, since it runs all the way from basic uses to pattern-matching and associative retrieval, by way of the non-list data types in Lisp, and includes discussion of the symbol table and other internals that definitely fall into the “advanced” category.

However, this was my second introduction to Lisp (after SICP), so it has a fond place in my memory. The fact that it deals with language internals isn’t a bad thing, because it deals with the basics so well. It’s very much a traditional programming introduction focusing on the “needed” parts of the language. It pre-dates the Common Lisp standard and doesn’t touch on CLOS, which perhaps make it a less appropriate choice for newcomers these days than Practical Common Lisp.


There is also a second edition. I haven’t read it, but it seems that it addresses at least the concern about being non-standard:

Robert Wilensky. Common LISPcraft. W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-039395544-6. 1986.

(Part of the series An annotated Lisp bibliography.)