I keep bouncing off LISP, but keep coming back assuming there is something I'm missing. I'm not convinced it is just 'what is the difference between setp, setf

I keep bouncing off LISP, but keep coming back assuming there is something I'm missing. I'm not convinced it is just 'what is the difference between setp, setf, defvar, and defparameter?' I think it is fundamentally different to how I approach programming. I learned programming back in the 8-bit era, taught myself assembly, etc. I'm almost a hard-coded imperative programmer. I took to C and Java like a duck to water, and I'm guessing LISP advocates think I'm irreparably broken. I agree with TeMPOraL that picking up a book to learn things is a good way to go and shouldn't be seen as a black mark against a language. The problem these days is that most books are rubbish. Every Clojure book I've seen is just garbage. I'm guessing CL books are better in regards to technical quality because not every average programmer can vomit one up but everything I've encountered invariably harps on about how much better LISP is than every other idea ever, and how concise and elegant it is, and the general smugness drives me nuts. Practical Common LISP is better than most in that regard but it still falls into the trap about how expressive and concise and elegant and awesome LISP is right before showing 3 lines of code I have to spend a long time digesting. I assume I'll get it one day, but it's like turning a container ship going really fast at the moment. I'm wondering if the best way to understand LISP is to write a CL interpreter.