 Greetings, aspirants. I welcome you all to another video of Frequently Asked Questions series. This video is brought to you by Shankar IAS Academy. As you all know, in this particular series of FAQ session, we try to address the common queries among UPSC aspirants regarding this UPSC examination. So, in that line, today I have a wonderful question to discuss. Let me read out the question for you. Does Shankar IAS Academy recommend some non-academic books for UPSC aspirants? Yes, we obviously do recommend you to read some non-academic books and I am here to tell you about the top 5 picks that an UPSC aspirant must read. Let me read out the book list for you. The first book is PAX INDICA written by Shashitaroor. The second book I would recommend is 21 Lessons for 21st century written by and the third book I would recommend is India Unbound written by and the fourth book I would recommend is argumentative Indian written by and the final book I have to recommend you is a brief history of time written by Stephen Hawking. So, now let me tell you why you should read PAX INDICA written by Shashitaroor is a person who does not require an introduction. So, just look at the title given by him to this book PAX INDICA. Here PAX means a period of peace that has been forced on a larger area like an empire or even the whole world by the most powerful nation at that time and here INDICA is the Greek word for India. See every country has their own PAX time. Yes, for example, the world-witnessed PAX Britannica during the 17th, 18th and 19th century British Empire was the most strongest and the largest of all empires. Later, Suez Canal crisis of 1956 marked the end of PAX Britannica. The 28th century was dominated by USA which can be indicated as PAX Americana and through this title PAX INDICA India and the world in 21st century the author is signaling that this is the time for India to foster peace in the world by overseeing the state of affairs in the world. So, the term is an aspirational word and the term reflects our global aspiration and this is the exact reason why you should read this book. As an aspirant, you can understand the geopolitical situation in various regions of the world and its relationship with India. You can get a hold on numerous disputes, conflicts and solutions to such disputes, especially in Indian context. Since it is a simple primer on India's foreign policy by one of the most popular writer, explained with ease, this is a must-read book. So, now let's move on to the next book 21 Lessons for 21 Century written by Yuval Noah Harari. Now, he also does not require any introduction because he is an author of one of the best-selling book titled Sapens, A Brief History of Humankind. So, now coming to the title of this book, as the name itself suggests, this book actually gives 21 lessons for the 21st century. The book tries to give some clarity to the readers about the current events and the immediate future of the human societies. That way, this book helps in leveling the global playing field. Answers to questions like, what is happening right now? What are today's greatest challenges and choices? What should we pay attention to? What should we teach our kids or some of its highlights? So, this book read, writes, in a world deluged with irrelevant information, clarity is power. So, as a UPSC aspirant, you can learn how to present a topic wonderfully from this gem of Yuval Noah Harari, a simple and the easy-read book. The next book I'm going to talk about is India Unbound written by Gurcharan Das. See, this book talks about the transformation of India from the birth of the writer in 1942 to 1999. The author mainly speaks about the politics in India and the economy in India during that period of time. Since the author classifies the entire timeline into three major sections, the book is a great mixture of memory, economic analysis, social investigation, political scrutiny and managerial outlook being thrown into the understanding of India. See, though the book looks a little bit outdated, the core concepts of the book have passed the test of time. So, as a aspirant, you can learn and understand what liberalization has done to India. So, now moving on to the next book. The next book is The Argumentative Indian written by Amitya Sen. We all know about Amitya Sen for his key contributions to the research on fundamental problems in welfare economics. In this book, Sen argues that understanding and applying argumentative tradition is crucial for the success of India's democracy, the difference of its secular politics, the elimination of inequality based on class, cast, gender and community and the pursuit of the subcontinental peace. See, it is an excellent book but not in the simplest of language. So, I would not recommend this book to the persons who are going to give their first attempt and for those persons who does not have and knowledge about Indian society and their past. But those who have a basic idea of India along with the command of English, this book is a gem. And the final book in the recommendation is A Brief History of Time which is written by Stephen Hawking. In this book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking writes a non-technical term about the structure, origin, development and eventual fate of the universe which is the object of study of astronomy and modern physics. Apart from this, the author writes about cosmological phenomena like the big bang and the black holes and he discusses two major theories. One is general relativity and the other is quantum mechanics. Since this book has so many takeaway points, reading this book will take you to enlightenment. So, here we are nearing to the end of the video. So far, I gave you recommendations what to do. Now, I will tell you what not to do. Please don't go and buy all the books and become a Sudanku. Sudanku is a person who owns a lot of unread literature. So, if you are asking me what I should do, I would recommend you to choose one book at a time. Just go through the book, write down some catchy codes or interesting examples and illustrations. You can use all of them in your main examination wherever it is required. See, we recommend all these books just to help you to expand your horizon and give a wide intellectual thinking. So, don't waste time in reading these books alone. Just read these books whenever you get time in between your preparation. I hope you loved this video. To know more videos like these, just subscribe to Shankara Ayes Academy YouTube channel. Now, very, very thank you for listening.