UPSC / IAS Optional – Full Book/ Subject List

The Civil Service examination is one of the prestigious and toughest examinations in India. Every year lakhs of aspirants attend the CSE exams to fulfill their dream of being civil servants.  The Civil Service exam comprises of two stages:

  • Civil Service Preliminary Exam 
  • Civil Service Mains Exam & Interview 

The candidates will attend the Mains exam after successfully clearing the Prelims exam. The Mains exam consists of 9 papers out of which 2 papers are of qualifying nature. The UPSC has a total of 26 optional subjects for the Civil Service Mains Exam. The candidates have to choose one optional subject for the Mains Exam.

UPSC Full Optional Subjects Include

  1. Agriculture
  2. Animal Husbandry & Veterinary science
  3. Anthropology
  4. Botany
  5. Chemistry
  6. Civil Engineering
  7. Commerce & Accountancy
  8. Economics
  9. Electrical Engineering
  10.  Geography
  11.  Geology
  12.  Law
  13.  History
  14.  Management
  15.  Mathematics
  16.  Mechanical Engineering
  17.  Medical Science
  18.  Philosophy
  19.  Physics 
  20.  Public Administration
  21.  Psychology
  22.  Political Science & International Relations
  23.  Sociology
  24.  Statistics
  25.  Zoology
  26. Literature of any of the following languages (Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kanada, kashmiri, Konkani, Marathi, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu & English)

Here is the booklist recommended by toppers and mentors for UPSC optional subjects. 

UPSC Optional Booklist for Geography

  1. Physical Geography – Majid Hussain
  2. Modern Physical Geography – Dr. Alan H. Strahler
  3. Certificate Physical and Human Geography – Goh Cheng Leong
  4. India – A Comprehensive Geography – D. R. Khullar
  5. Oxford Student Atlas
  6. Human Geography – Majid Hussain
  7. Geomorphology – Savindra Singh

UPSC Optional Books for History

  1. History of Modern India –Bipan Chandra
  2. India’s Struggle For Independence – Bipan Chandra and Others
  3. India’s Ancient Past – R.S. Sharma
  4. Ashoka and the Decline of the Mauryas  – Romila Thapar
  5. Spectrum’s A brief History of Modern India
  6. Comprehensive history of Medieval India from Twelfth to the Mid Eighteenth Century – Salma Ahmed Farooqui

UPSC Optional Books for Medical Science

  1. Human Anatomy – B.D.Chaurasia
  2. Ganong’s Review of Medical Physiology 
  3. Ananthanarayan and Paniker’s Textbook of Microbiology 
  4. Biochemistry – S. Satyanarayana
  5. Textbook of Human Neuroanatomy – Inderbir Singh
  6. Textbook of Obstetrics – DC Dutta 
  7. Howkins & Bourne Shaw’s Textbook Of Gynaecology

UPSC Optional Books for Anthropology

  1. An Introduction to Social Anthropology by D.N.Majumdar & T. N. Madan
  2. Physical anthropology by P. Nath
  3. Anthropology by Ember and Ember
  4. Indian Anthropology – Nadeem Hasnain
  5. Tribal India – Nadeem Hasnain
  6. An Introduction to Anthropological thought ( Theories) – by Makhan Jha

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UPSC Optional Booklist for Philosophy

  1. A History of Philosophy by Frank Thilly
  2. Indian Philosophy, A Counter Perspective by Dr Daya Krishna 
  3. Existentialism: A Reconstruction by David Cooper
  4. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy- Dr. Dutta
  5. An Introduction to Political Theory by O P Gauba
  6. Philosophy of Religion by John H. Hick
  7. Contemporary Western Philosophy – Dr. B.K. Lal
  8. The voyage of Discovery – Dr. William F. Lawhead

UPSC Optional Books for Mathematics

  1. Schaum’s outline on Linear Algebra
  2. Mathematical Analysis by Malik and Arora
  3. Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations by MD Raisinghania
  4. Schaum’s outline on Vector Analysis
  5. Analytic Geometry – Shanti Narayan, DK Jha, HC Sinha and Sharma

UPSC Optional Books for Management

  1. Organizational Behavior – Stephen Robbins
  2. Marketing Management – Philip Kotler
  3. Fundamentals of Management – Madhushree Agarwal, Sanghamitra Bhattacharya, Stephen Robbins, David DeCenzo
  4. Cost and Management Accounting – MN Arora
  5. Strategic Management – Hill and Jones
  6. Management Informations System – Kenneth C. Laudon
  7. Financial Management – Prasanna Chandra

UPSC Optional Books for Political Science

  1. A History Of Political Thought: Plato To Marx – Mukherjee and Susheela Ramaswamy
  2. Introduction to Political Theory – O P Gauba
  3. Foundations of Indian Political Thought – V R Mehta
  4. India’s Foreign policy – V P Dutt
  5. Global Politics – Andrew Heywood
  6. Politics – Andrew Heywood
  7. Does the Elephant Dance?: Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy – David M. Malone 

UPSC Optional Booklist for Psychology

  1. Psychology -Atkinson & Hilgard 
  2. Textbook of Psychology – Robert Baron 
  3. Introduction to Psychology -Morgan & King
  4. Psychology – Saundra Ciccarelli
  5. Social Psychology – Baron & Byrne
  6. Theories of Personality Hall & Lindzey
  7. Systems & Theories of Psychology – Krawiec & Chaplin
  8. Group Dynamics: The Psychology of Small Group Behavior – Marvin E. Shaw

UPSC Optional Booklist for Public Administration

  1. Administrative Thinkers – Prasad and Prasad
  2. New Horizons of Public Administration – Mohit Bhattacharya
  3. Public Administration: Administrative Theories and Concepts – Fadia & Fadia
  4. Restructuring Public Administration A New Look – Mohit Bhattacharya
  5. Public Administration In India – S.R. Maheshwari

How to Choose an IAS Academy

Books for Sociology 

  1. Sociology – Anthony Giddens
  2. Handbook of Indian Sociology – Veena Das
  3. Sociology Themes and Perspectives- Haralambos & Holborn 
  4. Social change in modern India – M N Srinivas
  5. Modern Organization (Foundations of Modern Sociology) – Amitai Etzioni

Books for Economics

  1. Microeconomics – Ahuja and Koutsyansis
  2. Macroeconomics – Ahuja and Mankiw
  3. Indian Economy – Ramesh Singh
  4. International Economics – Dominick Salvatore
  5. Public Finance – H.L. Bhatia
  6. Indian Economy – Mishra and Puri
  7. Indian Economy- Performance and Policies – Uma Kapila

Optional Books for Commerce

  1. Accounting Corporate Accounting – Naseem Ahmed
  2. Income Tax book by- V.K. Singhania or Girish Ahuja
  3. Cost Accounting; Theory & Problems- Maheshwari & Mittal
  4. Financial Management
  5. Taxation- Income Tax, Service Tax & VAT
  6. Indian Financial System- M.Y. Khan
  7. Financial Institutions & Markets- L.M. Bhole
  8. Human Resource Management- C.B. Gupta
  9. Industrial Relations- T.N. Chabra and R.K. Suri
  10. Dynamics of Industrial Relations- C.B. Mamoria and Satish Mamoria
  11. Organisation Theory and Behaviour- B.P. Singha and T.N. Chabra

Books for Agriculture

  1. Introduction To Horticulture – N. Kumar
  2. Handbook Of Agriculture By ICAR
  3. Principles of Agronomy- Yellamananda Reddy
  4. Plant Breeding By B.D. Singh
  5. Soil Science – D.K Das 
  6. Genetics By B.D.Singh
  7. Physiology By Pandey & Singha

Books for Botany

  1. Physiology and Biochemistry- Salisbury and Ross
  2. Cell And Molecular Biology- De Robertis E.D.P
  3. Genetics- Strickberger
  4. Economic Botany – S.L. Kochhar
  5. The Embryology of Angiosperms – S.S. Bhojwani and Bhatnagar
  6. Esau’s Plant Anatomy

Books for Law

  1. VN Shukla’s Constitution of India revised by M.P. Singh
  2. The Constitution of India (Bare Act) – PM Bakshi 
  3. Introduction to the Constitution of India – DD Basu
  4. Administrative Law – I.P.Massey 
  5. International Law – Malcom N Shaw
  6. An Introduction to Public International Law – S. K. Verma 
  7. Commentary on IPC – KD Gaur
  8. Law of Torts – Dr. R.K. Bangia

UPSC Optional Books for Zoology 

  1. Animal physiology & Biochemistry- H.R. Singh
  2. Cell and molecular biology – De Robertis
  3. Comparative anatomy of vertebrate zoology – Kent
  4. Harper’s Illustrated Biochemistry
  5. An Introduction To Embryology – B.L. Balinsky
  6. Economic Zoology – G.S. Shukla and Upadhaya
  7. Organic Evolution- Veer Bala Rastogi
  8. Invertebrates – R.L. Kotpal

Books for Chemistry 

  1. Atomic Structure – Principle of physical chemistry – Puri, Sharma & Pathwa
  2. Concise Inorganic Chemistry – J.D. Lee
  3. Theoretical principles of inorganic chemistry – G.S. Manku
  4. Principles of Physical Chemistry – B.R. Puri
  5. A Guidebook to Mechanism in Organic Chemistry – Peter Sykes
  6. A textbook of organic chemistry – Bahl & Bahl

UPSC Optional Books for Physics 

  1. Concept of Modern Physics – Arthur Beiser
  2. Introduction to Electrodynamics – David Griffiths
  3. Quantum Physics – H.C. Verma
  4. Quantum Mechanics -Ghatak & Loknathan
  5. Kittel’s Introduction to Solid State Physics

Optional Books for Statistics 

  1. Fundamentals of Applied Statistics – S C Gupta and V K Kapoor
  2. Fundamentals of Mathematical Statistics – A C Gupta and V K Kapoor
  3. Introductory Probability and Statistical Applications – Paul Meyer
  4. Sampling Theory of Surveys with applications – B. V Sukhatme & B V Sukhatme
  5. An Introduction to Probability Theory & Mathematical Statistics -V K Rohtagi
  6. Fundamentals of Statistics (2 Vol.)- A M Goon, M K Gupta and B Das Gupta
  7. Sampling Techniques-William G. Cochran

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