9 Best Clojure Books of 2024 [Learn Clojure ASAP]

Today we’re looking at the best Clojure books for this year.

🧠 Did you know? According to Clojure.org, Walmart used Clojure to create a data management system that integrates online and mobile data from over 5,000 stores.

What is Clojure?

Clojure is a general-purpose programming language. It is a functional and dynamic dialect of Lisp on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

Featuring a set of immutable, persistent data structures, Clojure provides a software transactional memory system.

What companies use Clojure?

According to Practicalli, many companies use Clojure including:

✅ Cisco

✅ Boeing

✅ Netflix

✅ Walmart

✅ Salesforce

And beyond.

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TLDR: Best Clojure Books

🔥 Best Overall 🔥
Clojure for the Brave and True

💥 Best for Newbies 💥
Getting Clojure: Build Your Functional Skills One Idea at a Time

💸 Best Value 💸
Clojure Programming: Practical Lisp for the Java World

Best Clojure Books

Now let’s take a look at some of the best Clojure books for this year.

The first 6 books are for Clojure newbies.

Books 7-9 are for intermediate and advanced Clojure developers.

You’ll discover their:

• features
• core concepts
• layout
• comparisons

And more.

Best Clojure Books for Beginners

Let’s dive into some of the best Clojure books for beginners.

1. Clojure for the Brave and True

↘️ Ideal for: Clojure newbies
↘️ Topics covered: fundamentals

Prepare to take a fantastical journey into the world of Clojure programming with this No Starch Press banger.

This books assumes you have no prior experience with Clojure, the JVM or functional programming.

➡️ In our opinion, Clojure for the Brave and True is one of the overall best Clojure books of all time.

Unlike other books, you’ll immediately start playing with real programs.

You’ll also find fantasy-driven sample programs where you’ll track glittery vampires and catch cheese thieves.

Along the way, you’ll learn about:

✅ Clojure’s core functions

✅ using Emacs for Clojure development

✅ using Clojure’s tools for parallel programming

And much, much more.

What Clojure developers are saying about Clojure for the Brave and True:

…Well explained, well exampled, and incredibly humorous. Written by someone who clearly wants you to love what you’re learning…

– Jonathan Whittle

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2. Getting Clojure: Build Your Functional Skills One Idea at a Time

↘️ Ideal for: Clojure newbies
↘️ Topics covered: features, real-world examples

This book published by ever-amazing The Pragmatic Programmers takes a step-by-step approach to teaching you core Clojure concepts.

➡️ We believe Getting Clojure is one of the best Clojure books for newbies.

You’ll learn the syntax and mechanics behind various features.

Once you understand them, you can dig deeper to find out the logic surrounding each of these features.

Then you’ll learn how immutable data structures in Clojure lead to more reliable programs.

In addition, you’ll find real-world examples of experienced developers using Clojure.

What Clojure developers are saying about Getting Clojure:

…Definitely the best first Clojure book to learn the basics and core concepts…

– YingAsReader

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3. Clojure Programming: Practical Lisp for the Java World

↘️ Ideal for: Clojure newbies
↘️ Topics covered: Clojure fundamentals and flexibility

Clojure Programming published by O’Reilly is similar to Clojure for the Brave and True and Getting Clojure.

But it’s a little easier on the wallet.

It’s an older book on Clojure, but don’t let that fool you.

It’s still packed with tons of relevant Clojure gems to get you up and running with the language.

➡️ Clojure Programming is perhaps one of the best Clojure books for developers on a budget.

You’ll learn all about the flexibility of Clojure and how it can be used for:

✅ web programming

✅ working with databases

✅ data analysis

And beyond.

You’ll also discover how Clojure eliminates the need for complicated design patterns.

Finally, you’ll learn how deploy both small and large web applications to the cloud.

What Clojure developers are saying about Clojure Programming:

If you only get one Clojure book, this is the one to get…

– James Orchard-Hays

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4. Web Development with Clojure: Build Large, Maintainable Web Applications Interactively

↘️ Ideal for: new and experienced Clojure developers
↘️ Topics covered: libraries, tools, best practices

Like Getting Clojure, Web Development with Clojure is another book published by The Pragmatic Programmers.

But instead of building your functional programming skills, you’ll focus on building large, maintainable web applications.

➡️ Web Development with Clojure is arguably one of the best Clojure books for learning web development.

You’ll start by looking at Clojure’s new libraries, tools and best practices.

Then you’ll:

✅ build a fully-featured Single Page Application (SPA) app with re-frame

✅ become an expert with the Ring/Compojure stack

✅ learn how Clojure works with databases

And much, much more.

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5. Programming Clojure

↘️ Ideal for: experienced programmers new to Clojure
↘️ Topics covered: functional programming, recursion, sequence abstraction

Ah, yet ANOTHER book published by The Pragmatic Programmers.

So how is this book different from Getting Clojure and Web Development with Clojure?

Unlike the other books, Programming Clojure is considered by many to be the definitive guide to Clojure. That’s because it was written by members of the Clojure team.

➡️ We believe Programming Clojure is one of the best Clojure books for thinking in Clojure.

You’ll start by learning about Clojure’s syntax.

Then, you’ll learn about things like sequence abstraction, how to write programs in a functional style and how to use recursion.

After that, you’ll explore combining Clojure’s tools for maximum effectiveness.

Finally, you’ll learn how to write real-world programs while using:

✅ immutable data

✅ functional programming

✅ safe concurrency

And beyond.

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6. The Clojure Workshop

↘️ Ideal for: experienced developers new to functional programming
↘️ Topics covered: Clojure and ClojureScript

This book is a bit different than any other book on our list because you’ll learn ClojureScript alongside Clojure.

💡 What is ClojureScript? It’s a compiler for Clojure that emits JavaScript code.

➡️ The Clojure Workshop is arguably one of the best Clojure books for hands-on developers.

That’s because you’ll be working on tons of projects while learning the fundamentals of Clojure and ClojureScript.

While exploring common patterns and best practices, you’ll experiment with code and master concepts like:

✅ mapping

✅ filtering

✅ reducing

✅ recursion

You’ll also learn how to write unit tests and simplify your code.

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Best Clojure Books: Intermediate and Advanced

Now we’ll look at the best intermediate and advanced Clojure books for this year.

7. The Joy of Clojure

↘️ Ideal for: intermediate Clojure developers
↘️ Topics covered: building web apps, mastering functional programming techniques

While The Joy of Clojure is a bit older, it’s still highly relevant in today’s Clojure environment.

➡️ We believe The Joy of Clojure is one of the best Clojure books for intermediate developers.

You’ll take a deep dive into Clojure concepts. Going beyond syntax, you’ll learn how to write fluent Clojure code.

In addition, you’ll learn how to:

✅ simplify concurrency

✅ build web apps using ClojureScript

✅ master functional programming techniques

Finally, you’ll learn how to solve difficult problems surrounding performance and interoperability.

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8. Elements of Clojure

↘️ Ideal for: experienced Clojure developers
↘️ Topics covered: making better design choices

Elements of Clojure is a little different than The Joy of Clojure. That’s because Elements of Clojure is for even more experienced Clojure developers.

➡️ In our opinion, Elements of Clojure is one of the best Clojure books for making better design choices.

The book is divided into four sections.

First, you’ll look at how names define the structure of software.

Second, you’ll uncover syntactic advice for writing clean, readable code.

Third, you’ll explore how to make code more simple.

Finally, you’ll learn how to combine your code.

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9. Clojure for Data Science

↘️ Ideal for: experienced Clojure developers
↘️ Topics covered: data science

This book covers statistics, big data and machine learning for experienced Clojure developers.

➡️ Clojure for Data Science is perhaps one of the best Clojure books for data science.

And it’s not for the faint of heart.

You’ll dive deep into data science concepts like:

✅ scaling algorithms

✅ interpreting terminology

✅ implementing machine learning techniques

✅ importing libraries from other JVM languages

✅ statistics and distributions in exploratory data analysis

And much more.

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Best Clojure Books: Conclusion

Today we showed you the best Clojure books including:

🔥 Best Overall 🔥
Clojure for the Brave and True

💥 Best for Newbies 💥
Getting Clojure: Build Your Functional Skills One Idea at a Time

💸 Best Value 💸
Clojure Programming: Practical Lisp for the Java World

So whether you’re looking for the best overall or something to fit your budget, we think these are the best Clojure books of this year.

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