ANSI Common LISP

Rating:
Summary: A good first study for the Lisp beginner
Review: With only mild prerequisites in computer science and/or math, Paul Graham gently but quite fully introduces the rudiments of Common Lisp. This was my first Lisp book, recommended to me by a Lisp-fluent student in college when I had to learn the language for an AI class. While I then moved on to more referencial works, like Steele's _Common Lisp: The Language_, Graham is still a foundation for much of the basic grammar, structure, and reasoning behind the form of the language.

While Graham does delve into some interesting coding examples in the second half of the book, _ANSI Common LISP_ is not meant to replace a referential or exemplary book concerning the language. If you're looking for a more case-study sort of book, I suggest Norvig's _Paradigms of AI programming_ or Tanimoto's _Elements of Artificial Intelligence_. Both offer a wealth of examples that Graham rightfully omits in order to more broadly cover the fundamentals of the language itself.