# Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel

7 Hacker News commenters recommended Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it as a hands-on route into Common Lisp that gets readers writing working programs, and as the usual reference for those who already program.

## Why people recommend it

- Hands-on path to working code (3 comments): "What you usually do is follow the book instructions and get some result, then go to do some exploration on your own." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46304164)) "it got me far enough that i was able to write two applications that i ended up using for several years." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48949467)) "This book gets you using lisp like you would say golang." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48949222))
- Widely used reference for Lisp (2 comments): "the usual reference if you already know how to program is PCL" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48290724)) "they both proved to be decent choices" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46452343))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom](https://hackerapproved.com/p/crafting-interpreters.md): 60 recommend
- [Clean Code by Robert C. Martin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/clean-code.md): 31 recommend
- [The Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt and Thomas](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pragmatic-programmer.md): 28 recommend
- [How to Design Programs by Felleisen, Findler, Flatt and Krishnamurthi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/how-to-design-programs.md): 18 recommend
- [Mastering Emacs by Mickey Petersen](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mastering-emacs.md): 17 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1430200170?tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/130825/9781430200178) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel", https://hackerapproved.com/p/practical-common-lisp/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).