As the title sates, i recently read all the copies of The real Barenziah and it was a very sad story But it was great!
It revealed some secrets of Tiber Septim himself even, he even made Barenziah pregnant and then aborted the child. It is almost emotional when you get to Riften in game and remember that Barenziah lived there and even joined the Thieves guild and lived together with a Khajit in that city. I try to imagine where she lived and how she felt when she stared over to Morrowind from Riften... It's just awesome.
Now when i see a statue of Talos(Tiber spetim) i see all the scenes from the book, he wasn't that good actually when you think of it.
It, in other words, changed my view on the game completely!
I strongly suggest you read it too!

You can read it here if you don't have all the copies: http://uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Real_Barenziah

Go read! And then tell me what you think of it and if it changed your view on the game!
Btw, those unusual gems you find, those are the gems from Queen Barenziah's crown, they don't mention anything of it in the book though..
The book only covers Barenziah's first 500 years or so since Dark Elves can become very old.. Just needed to let you know.

Its a great book

You should read the Daggerfall version, you can find it on the UESP.
It has some things that are not in the later versions, most notably a love scene with a Khajit.

Haha, yeah Therris right?
It was censored in the skyrim version

In all versions after Daggerfall
Though post Daggerfall books are more detailed and longer in total.

There are a lot of awesome books out there that really make Tamriel more alive, more of a real world.
I can reccomend the 'A Dance in Fire' series, it is awesome.

Anything written by Waughin Jart is worth reading.

Ok, i will!

Didn't really change my view of the game. But then again, I originally read it in Daggerfall back in the '80s.

I always seem to miss the implications of the more esoteric TES books on the first read for some reason tho, which is about half of the ones Michael Kirkbride wrote.

Well, that was quite some time ago.. Maybe you have forgotten stuff?
Anyway, a big part of the book is in Skyrim and that's why it makes it so special!
And that they meet Tiber Septim makes it feel so much more emotional when you see his statue

I thought I had, when I read the Morrowind version, since it seemed different. Upon double-checking, it turned out that one of the volumes HAD changed significantly from Daggerfall to Morrowind. That did definitely color how I viewed the relationship between Barenziah and Plitinius Mero (the real author) when I played the Tribunal expansion.

The mind-altering stuff I've read recently deals more with things like the Marukhati Selectives and the quasi-canonical stuff by Michael Kirkbride.

The books are such a great part of this game, it's a shame all that hard work goes unnoticed with most of the people playing this game. I'll have to find this series in the game, sounds interesting. I know I could look in the UESP, but where's the fun in that?

I thought the same but i wasn't able to find all the copies in game
But if you feel like you are able to do it, then do it! The books are amazing and very, very sad...

I have become a book thief in the game.I have them collected on my character that has finished both MQ lines and have picked the house with the most amount o bookshelf space I could find and am now adventuring to fill any gaps in my collections.Even on just the base note of playing the game only , the books strike you as more than just game fluff as they did put alot of decent work into them so I took notice and started reading them.My dual-wielding crazy barbarian Nord is retiring from his youth of pillaging and plundering and is becoming a wiser more well-read mentor to his younger counterparts.( my other characters)

Sounds interesting... Have you read The real Barenziah yet?

Anything written by Crassius Curio is worth reading.

Also Daggerfall "The Real Barenziah" series > The censored versions, especially volume 4

I have a habit of picking up at least one of every book in the game and putting them in order on bookshelves in my house. It's nice to read them at my leisure. I have been known to read a book while surrounded by draugr deathlords though

Yeah actually I'm getting to those now , but there is just some seriously good little surprises I'm still finding on newer characters that I completely missed on my favorite guy , so he's dusted off his gear , saddled his horse and went to verify these new wonders for himself. =P

Off by about 10 years there. Daggerfall was '96ish I think. I was in high school when it came out.