One of the questions that n00bs are always asking in Emacs venues is, “How can I get started with Emacs Lisp?” It’s a huge help if the requester has a little Lisp background, of course, but the real hurdle to my mind—others disagree—is learning the Elisp specific commands and idioms.
Chris Done has an excellent GitHub repository that contains an Elisp Guide. He assumes the reader has some programming experience but not necessarily that it’s Lisp experience. The guide covers many of the basic features of the language and is a good first look at Elisp programming. Done’s goal is to get the reader to the point that he can profitably read the manual.
If you’ve been wanting to try out Elisp or maybe just make a simple change to your configuration, this is a nice resource. As I say, it will get you to the point that you can fill in the blanks by reading the manual.