List of Reference Books

 

To ace the Civil Services examination, you need to cover a few sets of books. These books can vary, depending on your background and interest. We, however, are providing you the list of books that are important for an aspirant who don’t have an iota of idea about the preparation.

For the benefit of all the aspirants, we are limiting this article to the General Studies section, and the optionals will be dealt with in the optional specific articles.

Before listing the books, we hope you have gone through the UPSC pattern and syllabus. If you have not, please read it so that you understand why the below listed books are important to cover.

Please don’t carry a notion that you can cover every question that UPSC throws at you by completing the books given below. Neither it is possible, nor it is desired by the UPSC.

Let’s divide the entire book list into two sections:

Fundamental books

Advanced books

It goes without saying that you opt for advanced books once you cover the fundamentals and not the other way round.

Fundamental books

 

History	NCERT: 6-12
Indian Polity
Geography
Economics
Science

 

 

Advanced Books

 

General Studies 1

 

Modern History	Spectrum
Art and Culture	Nitin Singhania
World History	Norman Lowe
Post-independence history	Selected topics from India after Independence by Bipan Chandra
Indian Society	Ram Ahuja
Geography	G.C.Leong

General Studies 2

 

Indian Polity	M.Laxmikanth
International Relations	Pavneet Singh
Governance	IGNOU Notes

 

General Studies 3

 

Economics	Ramesh Singh
Environment	Environment and Ecology by R.Rajgopalan
Disaster and Disaster Management	IGNOU notes
Internal Security	Lohit Matani

 

General Studies 4

 

Ethics, Integrity & Aptitude	G. Subbarao
Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude	Lexicon
Reports	ARC 4th report and 12th report

 

 

These are the major books that you have to cover to have a good understanding of the topics. Reading books for every topic in the syllabus is neither feasible nor desirable. This article gives you a broad overview of what books you must follow to clear the civil services exam. You, however, are free to have your own set of books. This article does not restrict you from studying more books. The list however, is comprehensive and should be completed first. Does this list cover the entire syllabus? No. But, rest of the topics can be done with the help of internet or we, at Adda 247, can assure you that no topic will be left if you plan to come onboard.