[centipede]

There was a book by Hofstadter (of Godel, Escher, Bach fame) which has a nice introduction. Perhaps the book was called Metamagicum.

[jey]

Are you referring to Metamagical Themas? That book is a collection of columns he wrote for Scientific American, and only a couple of those have anything to do with Lisp.

[eru]

Yes, I refer to those. They have been my first contact with Lisp. The Wizard Book (SICP) was useful later on.

I did only remember the German title (Metamagicum). Thanks for finding the English one.