Some books: each had brief, overwhelming appeal (9)
I believe the answer is:
apocrypha
'some books' is the definition.
(the apocryphal books of the Bible)
'each had brief overwhelming appeal' is the wordplay.
'each' becomes 'a pop' (eg 'one pound a pop' can mean 'one pound each').
'brief' means to remove the last letter.
'overwhelming' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'appeal' becomes 'cry' (as in a cry for help).
'apop'+'had'='apophad'
'apophad' with its last letter removed is 'apopha'.
'apopha' enclosing 'cry' is 'APOCRYPHA'.
(Other definitions for apocrypha that I've seen before include "Collection of fourteen Old Testament books" , "odd books" , "Fourteen books of the Old Testament excluded from most versions of of the Bible" , "Old Testament books rejected in Judaism and excluded from Protestant Bible" , "dropped books" .)