[peatmoss]

I like Practical Common Lisp if you’re dead set on Common Lisp as your lisp.

However, I’m a fan of How To Design Programs as a gentle introduction, followed by the Racket Guide (EDIT: if you're open to other lisps). Racket is a Scheme-descended lisp, and I feel has better pedagogy, community, and a more modern feel than Common Lisp.

I also like Clojure. There have been several decent books, some free, in addition to Clojure Koans and the 4clojure exercises.

EDIT: While I like Emacs, if you don’t already grok Emacs, DrRacket is a very compelling reason to start your lisp journey with Racket.