Hooks, condition handlers and restarts. This book provides a detailed introduction to exception handling in Common Lisp (and beyond).

The concepts are not completely alien to other languages, and if one is experienced in programming (and a bit in CL), and doesn't want to build a whole custom condition system with debugger (chapter 3 is dedicated to such activity), - I would advise to jump directly to Chapter 4 where important and curious details, pros and cons of the standardized restarts in CL are given. And explore from there.