Raghav,

I can't *not* mention classics like SICP (Free, comes with 
retro-wave videos, easily found on-line), and The 
{Little,{R,S}easoned} Schemer series (not free, and not for 
everyone).  Both of these focus on Scheme, which as you probably 
know is a very elegant minimal dialect of Lisp.

With that out of the way, and as much as I enjoyed them, I don't 
think either can be described as swiss army knives.

I just last week downloaded ‘The Land of Lisp’[0] for a friend. 
It's definitely more modern and a lot more silly, aims to help you 
‘learn Lisp, one game at a time’, and sounds the hands-on 
introduction you're looking for.

In the more serious camp: I've heard good things about Practical 
Common Lisp.  Unlike Land of Lisp, it's freely available 
on-line[1].

I can't personally vouch for either, but I hope to have been of 
service.

Kind regards,

T G-R

[0]: http://landoflisp.com/ (beware: my IceCat shows an audio icon 
:-)
[1]: http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/