Suggested Non Fiction books for UPSC Interview and Essay.

Mains will start in few days and after that the entire ecosystem of UPSC aspirants goes in to relax mode, people will start relaxing and wait for the results,  generally we all waste time, instead we can read some of these books, they are highly recommend and chosen keeping upsc syllabus, interview and essay in mind.

We have cross checked all the sites and providing links with cheapest prices, *the Links are Affiliated*.There is no rule that you must read books for interview or essay,but broadening our horizons will help us become better. In that hope presenting this list,Hope you find the list useful.

If you like Audio books most of them are available in Audible Give it a try!

Books about India

There are many books about India, only few are highly useful and others are Honorary mentions, just keep them in mind and may be after getting in to service or some time later in life do read them. Listing first 5 books in usefulness and in that very order and rest in no particular order.

1. India After Gandhi: The History Of The World’s Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha
2. The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity by Amartya Sen
3. Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century by Nandan Nilekani
4. The Wonder That Was India by A.L. Basham
5. 10 Judgements That Changed India by Zia Mody

2019 New books !

• The Steel Frame A History of the IAS by Deepak Gupta
• Not Just A Civil Servant by Anil Swarup
• Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Bureaucracy But Were Afraid to Ask
• What Ails the IAS and Why It Fails to Deliver
• The Great March of Democracy: Seven Decades of India’s Elections
• The Transformative Constitution: A Radical Biography in Nine Acts by Gautam Bhatia
• Caste Matters by Suraj Yengde
• Conversations with Ambedkar – 10 Ambedkar Memorial Lectures
• The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

Honorary mentions

• Do We Care: India’s Health System by K. Sujatha Rao
• The Turn of the Tortoise: The Challenge and Promise of India’s Future by T N Ninan 2015 latest release so all the latest facts.
• Rebooting India : Realizing a Billion Aspirations by Nandan Nilekani
• India Shastra : Reflections on the Nation in Our Time by Shashi Tharoor
• An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions by Jean Dreze & Amartya Sen
• Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy by Ashutosh Varshney
• The Idea of India by Sunil Khilnani
• The Future of India by Bimal Jalan
• Emerging India: Economics, Politics and Reforms by Bimal Jalan
• In Spite Of The Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce
• Everybody Loves a Good Drought by P. Sainath
• Ash in the Belly: India’s Unfinished Battle Against Hunger by Harsh Mander
• Looking Away by Harsh Mander
• Mistaken Modernity: India between Worlds by Dipankar Gupta
• The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma by Gurcharan Das
• India Unbound: from Independence to the Global Information age by Gurcharan Das
• India: Priorities for the Future by Bimal Jalan
• Seven Decades of Independent India
• The Billionaire Raj: A Journey through India’s New Gilded Age by James Crabtree
• RTI Story: Power to the People by Aruna Roy

General

These are some of the best books I found very useful, specially first two are absolutely amazing books, Sapiens is the best books I have read in ages, just go for it.

• Guns, Germs And Steel by Jared Diamond
• Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari *Best in the list*
• Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
• 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
• What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
• Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words (image based)
• Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty by James A. Robinson Daron Acemoglu
• The Path Ahead: Transformative Ideas for India by Amitabh Kant
• AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee

Climate Change

• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert 2015 Pulitzer Prize Winner.
• Big World, Small Planet: Abundance Within Planetary Boundaries

Behavioural

These are very interesting books and are highly recommended .

• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson ( surprisingly motivational)
• The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change by Charles Duhigg
• Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness
• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman Nobel Laureate.
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
• Super Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt

International Relations

• Does the Elephant Dance?: Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy
• How India Sees The World: From Kautilya to Modi: Kautilya to the 21st Century Shyam Saran
• Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy Shivshankar Menon
• Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century

Internal Security :

• How India Manages Its National Security by Arvind Gupta

Memoirs , Biographies and Autobiographies

• I Do What I Do Raghuram G. Rajan
• Wings of Fire: An Autobiography of Abdul Kalam
• Advice and Dissent: My Life in Public Service by Y.V. Reddy
• Gandhi Before India by Ramachandra Guha
• Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World by Ramachandra Guha

We have missed tons of good books, so please do suggest us your favourite books.