Lets add fun to the UPSC preparation.

These scribbles are for the future UPSC aspirants (not to exclude the general readers) who are interested in preparing for the Civil Services Examination and might appear anytime in or after 2013.  This post is definitely not for the aspirants who are appearing this year as it refers to some long term preparation requiring considerable time and effort, which this year students don’t have the luxury of.

Talking of humanities as any of the optionals (even if there are speculations that there might be a significant change in the UPSC syllabus next year onwards), or for that matter General Studies and Personal Interview, I think there are certain books  and reading material which if you are able to devour before starting your actual preparation, you have a head on start compared to others (and yeah, for aspirants who are serious about 2013, I know you have at least next 3 to 4 months, go slow on movies and dates, follow or at least try to read some of these).

Here is my recommended list:

1)      ‘India Unbound’ by Gurcharan Das (exceptionally good written, yet easy to comprehend work, detailing the history of India post independence, seen from an eye of an entrepreneur)

2)      ‘India after Gandhi’ by Ramachandra Guha (very useful for GS and interview)

3)      ‘The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of the World Order’ by Samuel P Huntington (very useful for GS Paper II, Political science & IR students ,and also for the interview)

4)       ‘Development as Freedom’ by Amartya Sen (Especially important considering the debates on sustainable development, and growth vs development)

5)     ‘Public Institutions in India: Performance and Design’ by Devesh Kapur and Pratap Bhanu Mehta (very good cases for public administration and GS)

6)      ‘Splendour in the Grass: Innovations in Administration’ (sixteen cases on Public Administration by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Government of India)

7)       ‘Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India’s Poorest Districts’ by P Sainath (very useful for quoting some cases, very detailed, read only if you are interested in the topic)

8)      ‘Imagining India’ by Nandan Nilekani

9)      ‘The Future Shock’/ ‘The Third Wave’ by  Alvin Toffler (infact any of the Toffler books’ would give an idea that his predictions were spot on)

10)   ‘The Wonder that was India’ by A L Basham (especially good for History Students)

11)    ‘Arthaśāstra’ by Kautilya/ ‘The Prince’ by N Machiavelli

12)   ‘The End of History and the Last Man’ by Francis Fukuyama

Talking about some of the light reads which are somehow connected to the prep, might make for a light fiction, here’re my suggestions:

1)      ‘English August’/ ‘The Mammaries of the Welfare State’ by Upamanyu Chatterjee

2)      ‘The Strange Case of Billy Biswas’ by Arun Joshi

3)       ‘Journeys through Babudom and Netaland’ by T. S. R. Subramanian

4)      ‘Lunatic in my head’ by Anjum Hasan

Enough, right :). I second this.

Please understand that this is not a ‘must do’ list, what I am merely saying is that for the aspirants who have time on their hands and want to constructively use it, these recommendations might come in very handy.

Last, but not the least, dailies like ‘The Hindu’ and ‘The Indian Express’, a good monthly magazine like: ‘Civil Services Times’ or ‘Chronicle’, even ‘The Economic and Political Weekly’ (a bit difficult read for the starters, but believe me, pays in the long run; only selected articles and not the entire magazine, its online subscription also comes in very useful), coupled with the standard texts (how innocently I have added thousands of pages, you see) are indispensable, no matter at what stage of preparation you find yourself in.

PS: I haven’t taken any commission from any of the publishers listed above, at least not till now. Enjoy the readings.

PPS: People who are cursing me for not putting my scanned answers which might be beneficial for this year, please hold on with the swear words, am traveling, will reach Delhi in a few days where I have my answer sheets etc and will do the needful asap pls.