UPSC Prelims Books 2023

According to me as well as several toppers of previous IAS exams, the best way to start your UPSC preparation is by reading through the NCERT books for UPSC and then moving on to the standard UPSC book list for 2023 (consisting of the standard books).

Also, you should be mindful about the type of IAS books that you choose for your preparation, given that the UPSC prelims and UPSC mains are very different from each other and would need 2 different sets of reading material for each.

The UPSC Exam 2023 for Prelims, being an entirely objective type of paper would need a separate booklist and the UPSC Mains being entirely subjective in its nature would need its own.

Best UPSC Books for IAS Prelims

In the IAS prelims round there are 2 papers and both are objective type in nature. That means both have multiple-type questions with negative markings for each wrong answer.

I have already mentioned the NCERT books that you’d need to go through for the prelims in the section above. However, below I have given the list of the best IAS books for the Prelims round (apart from the NCERTs):