$VAR2 is "under" $VAR1, it's your Data::Dumper call that's wrong. You need to backslash the hash (to create a hashref): 
print Dumper \%books

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Apostrophes need to be quoted inside a single-quoted string, otherwise it will be interpreted as being the end of the string.

Update: must use Spelling before writing "apostrophes"

In reply to Re: Hash of Hashes by FunkyMonk
in thread Hash of Hashes by ewhitt

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