Added up books sent up by lanky journalist (8)
I believe the answer is:
totalled
'added up' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'books sent up by lanky journalist' is the wordplay.
'books' becomes 'ot' (Old Testament).
'sent up' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'by' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'lanky' becomes 'tall' ('tall' can be similar in meaning to 'lanky').
'journalist' becomes 'ed' (short for editor).
'ot' in reverse letter order is 'to'.
'to'+'tall'+'ed'='TOTALLED'
(Other definitions for totalled that I've seen before include "completely destroyed" , "Added together" , "came to" , "blown away" , "Summed" .)