Munish Sharma, a Delhi biochemist turned MBA, has stood second in the Union public service commission (UPSC) exams.
He doffs his hat for his success not to textbooks, but to newspapers:
“I did not study too much, just read The Hindu newspaper word to word. I loved it.
“I read the newspaper, I wrote the exam.
“I did not shut myself in to study for hours. I continued reading the papers,” he said, adding that his mother, who also loves newspapers and reading was his main inspiration.”
Also read: How to pass IAS exam: read newspapers and magazines
IJR 
My relative who is no more had also claimed that his success in CA exams entirely to reading ‘The Hindu’ and nothing else by way of preparations! And he passed the exams in one attempt!
I almost never read the Hindu, because I grew up in Mangalore, where the popular papers, at the time, were the Deccan Herald and the Indian Express (which I sometimes read from cover to cover, including the advertisements for government tenders). I read many of Frank Moraes’s fine editorials, but I also read “Time” and “Punch” and “The Illustrated Weekly of India.” I bought the textbooks for my IAS exams around two months before the exam, analyzed the previous years’ question papers, and selectively studied for two months while “working” as a Probationary Officers in the State Bank of India. It would be dishonest and silly for me to claim that I answered papers on British Constitutional History and British History (both of which I knew next to nothing about) thanks to having read “The Hindu” or even “The Indian Express.” The textbooks, and a clear mind, and a plan, helped me to do it. I came 43rd in the IAS list, and around 49th or lower in the IFS list, because my interview marks were horrific (no one had prepared me for the interview, or how to deal with seasoned, wise men who would swallow no bullsh*t).
So it goes.