Recommended Books for UPSC IAS Civil Services Examination

Table of Contents

1 GS 1
2 GS 2
3 GS 3
4 GS 4
5 Prelims

Books For UPSC IAS Civil Services Examination

In my opinion, the below mentioned books are more than enough to cover all important topics.

Always search for the latest Edition.

GS 1 Latest Editions
Indian Culture	Nithin Singaniya	Amazon — Flipkart	His hand written notes is good. Book has got good feedback. It 100% exam oriented. “Benefit to Cost” Ratio is High
	The Wonder That was India 1	Amazon — Flipkart	Buy it only if you can read 500 pages on Indian Culture. Good Books if you are a book lover “Benefit to Cost” Ratio is low
	The Wonder That was India 2	Amazon — Flipkart
Modern Indian History and Freedom Struggle	Spectrum	Amazon — Flipkart	Important For Prelims and Mains Necessary facts are given in the form of summary. Around 300 pages “Benefit to Cost” Ratio is High
Modern Indian History and Freedom Struggle	Bipin Chandra	Amazon — Flipkart	Bad for Prelims Good For Mains answer writing. 500+ pages The book is written like a story. One needs lot of patience to read this book. “Benefit to Cost” Ratio is low
Post-Independence India	Bipin Chandra	Amazon — Flipkart	Post Independence Consolidation – Only 5-6 Chapters required. Under Modern Indian History, some important events like 1962 war, Emergency, etc can be covered from this book. Written like a story Biased Towards Congress “Benefit to Cost” Ratio is High
Post-Independence India	Ramachandra Guha	Amazon — Flipkart	Buy BIPIN or This one. No big difference. No matter who the author is history doesn’t change
Modern World History	Mastering Modern World History – Norman Lowee	Amazon — Flipkart	It starts from 1917 Pre 1917 available in NCERT (available on mrunal.org) “Benefit to Cost” Ratio is High if you study selectively
General topics like Indian Society, Poverty, Urbanization, etc..	News Papers, notes here and there
Geography	My Notes OR the below books. [I have compiled notes from below books] Visit This Link: How to Study Geography General Studies UPSC IAS
	Savinder Singh	Amazon — Flipkart
	Spectrum Geography	Amazon — Flipkart
	Certificate Physical Geography	Amazon — Flipkart
Indian Geography	Indian Geography by Kullar	Amazon — Flipkart
GS 2
Indian Constitution	M Laxmikanth	Amazon — Flipkart	“Benefit to Cost” Ratio is Very High
Indian Constitution	DD Basu	Amazon — Flipkart	Read it after Laxmikanth if you have time
India and Neighbors, International Relations	Does the Elephant Dance?: Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy	PDF available on net You don’t need a book to be frank. Most of the questions come from Current Affairs	Good Book [Not must]
GS 3
Indian Economy	Sanjiv Verma	Amazon — Flipkart	Mrunal First. Books Next Short Book “Benefit to Cost” Ratio is High
	Ramesh Singh	Amazon — Flipkart	Big Book Compared to Sanjiv Verma Lot of unnecessary data “Benefit to Cost” Ratio is low compared to Sanjiv verma
Disaster Management to Various Security Forces	Internal Security and Disaster Management By Ashok Kumar	Amazon — Flipkart	Very Good Book It will save time Don’t do net digging for these topics
GS 4
Ethics	Lexicon Ethics	Amazon — Flipkart	For Basic understanding visit mrunal.org “Benefit to Cost” Ratio is ok