A reader macro like qw() in Perl

perl_qw-reader.lisp

(defpackage :perl-symbols)


(defun my-qw-reader (stream char)
  (declare (ignore char))
  (let ((*readtable* (copy-readtable nil))
        (*package* (find-package :perl-symbols)))
    (setf (readtable-case *readtable*)
          :preserve)
    (set-macro-character #\: nil nil *readtable*)
    (labels ((r (x)
             (typecase x
               (null   x)
               (symbol (symbol-name x))
               (cons   (cons (r (car x))
                             (r (cdr x))))
               (T      x))))
      (r (read stream)))))

(set-macro-character #\§ #'my-qw-reader)

(list 1 2 §FooBar `§(OMG it is full (of Strings!)))
; (1 2 "FooBar" ("OMG" "it" "is" "full" ("of" "Strings!")))