*The Little Schemer*, by Daniel P. Friedman and Matthias Felleisen, currently $23 on [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262560992/ref=pd_sim_books/103-5471398-9229403#reader_0262560992).
This is a classic text introducing the gentle art of programming, using the functional programming language Scheme.
Many people love this book, but it has an unusual dialog format that is not to everybody's taste.
-**Of particular interest for this course** is the explanation of the Y combinator, avaialble as a free sample chapter
+**Of particular interest for this course** is the explanation of the Y combinator, available as a free sample chapter
[at the MIT Press web page for the book](http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/BTLS/).