Models, very good, appearing in English books (8)
I believe the answer is:
epitomes
'models' is the definition.
(epitome is a kind of model)
'very good appearing in english books' is the wordplay.
'very good' becomes 'pi' (I've seen this in other clues).
'appearing in' indicates putting letters inside.
'english' becomes 'e' (abbreviation).
'books' becomes 'tomes' (tome is a kind of book).
'e'+'tomes'='etomes'
'pi' placed inside 'etomes' is 'EPITOMES'.
(Other definitions for epitomes that I've seen before include "Standards or typical examples" , "Perfect examples" .)