Warhammer 40k Books

Look for used book stores. The few I have I've bought second hand.

WH40k books are shit for the most part in terms of speculative fiction, and that says a lot.
They are marketing tools for toy soldiers. But still, if you need to read them, just get a kindle (second hand, whatever, something cheap) and download them all from the WH40k general or anna's archive.
That's what I do.

I just started playing the table top in 9th edition. Id really like to learn about the lore. Where do I start if I have brief youtube tier knowledge of the lore? I appreciate any and all help.

I play genestealers btw

Space Marine by Ian Watson will forever be my favourite 40k novel and my yardstick for what the setting's tone should be like. Bizarre and callous as frick, like you'd actually have culture shock if you experienced it for real. He also writes marines you'd be terrified just to occupy the same room with, instead of big square-jawed hero monks.
>"We're going in through it's anus", Biff whooped boisterously. Indeed. Indeed.

I know it ain't 40K, but I was very surprised by pic related. Not the biggest fan of Gav Thorpe but his showcasing of the day-to-day life and feel of a Dwarven hold was really engaging. The history of Ekrund and its people were given in really satisfying not-lore-dumpy way, so much so that it actually made me give a frick about Dwarves as a distinct, culture.

The narrative suffers a but in the latter quarter of the book, but overall its very solid stuff. Would recommend if you want some Warhammer that's a bit more grounded.

Now I made the mistake of following it up with Oathkeeper which is bordering straight trash. And it's a shame because I actually liked the characters quite a bit, but the author just fricked them in the ass for no good reason. For instance the main Dwarf leading the reclamation of a lost hold decides, against all advice, to take the entire expedition deep into the hold to murk Skaven in a type of Soviet Deep Battle. Greybeards advise him to take it easy, going level by level starting at the top and working down. But he says nah, frick it, we'll show them rat-men what's up. They immediately get slaughtered, and so halfway in the book you're in a situation where the reclamation is already doomed. You know it and the characters know it. What a fricking waste of good characters. On top of that one of the antagonists gets a drake at the end, and I get the impression that this may have been some slight greenskin wank on the author's part.

Long story short, Warhammer fiction, be it fantasy or 40k or whatever, is as good as whose writing it. Makes it very frustrating since by the second chapter of nearly any of them I have a decent idea on how shit it's going to be, but by then you already have the frickin thing.