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.
| History | NCERT: 6-12 |
| Indian Polity | |
| Geography | |
| Economics | |
| Science |
| 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 |
| Indian Polity | M.Laxmikanth |
| International Relations | Pavneet Singh |
| Governance | IGNOU Notes |
| Economics | Ramesh Singh |
| Environment | Environment and Ecology by R.Rajgopalan |
| Disaster and Disaster Management | IGNOU notes |
| Internal Security | Lohit Matani |
| 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.
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