crack a book

crack a book (third-person singular simple present cracks a book, present participle cracking a book, simple past and past participle cracked a book)

1. (informal) To open up one's books, especially in order to study.

   You had better crack the books if you want to have any chance of graduating this year.

   Of course he didn't even know that the Partition happened in the 1940s, let alone any details of cross-border disputes since then. It's not like that guy ever cracks a book.

The article a is not used exclusively, often it is replaced with the or a pronoun; e.g. "crack the books" or "crack some books". This idiom is also sometimes used without an intermediate determiner, e.g. "Cracking books is not optional in this class."

• hit the books