Is there a 'lispish' way to write code?

Yes. If you read enough Clojure, Scheme and Common Lisp code you'll see that they have their own different styles. On a few occasions I read Common Lisp code written by schemers, it was somewhat ugly and inelegant, although the same code would have been elegant if written in scheme. Here's an example from an Erik Naggum article( http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3195982690560792@naggum.... ). First the Scheme in common lisp:

  (defun make-account (balance)
    (labels ((withdraw (amount)
                       (if (>= balance amount)
                           (progn
                             (setf balance (- balance amount))
                             balance)
                         (format t "Insufficient funds")))
             (deposit (amount)
                      (setf balance (+ balance amount))
                      balance)
             (dispatch (m)
                       (cond
                        ((equal m 'withdraw) withdraw)
                        ((equal m 'deposit) deposit)
                        (t (format t "Unknown request -- MAKE-ACCOUNT")))))
      dispatch))

Perfectly reasonable way to do it in Scheme, not in Common Lisp. Heres how you do it in idiomatic Common Lisp:

  (defclass account ()
     ((balance :initarg :deposit :initform 0 :accessor balance)))

  (defmethod withdraw ((account account) amount)
     (decf (balance account) amount))

  (defmethod deposit ((account account) amount)
     (incf (balance account) amount))

  (defmethod withdraw :before ((account account) amount)
     (unless (<= amount (balance account))
       (error "~A has insufficient funds to withdraw ~A." account amount)))

I'll let the code speak for itself :)

Lisp allows you to turn code like the first example into code like the second.

edit: formatting