crack a book

Verb

 * 1)  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.

Usage notes
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."