Important Books for GATE Preparation 2018

With only a few months left, GATE 2018 is one of the exams which will be bugging most of the aspiring engineers who are looking for opportunities in the field of scientific research and higher studies. The exam opens the path for research in IISC, IIT's and even allows job opportunity in various PSU's. However, the limited number of opportunities and gigantic amount of examinees make GATE one of the toughest exams of our country. One wouldn't dare to even skip any of the sections listed in the syllabus which can be found by clicking the following link - GATE 2018 Syllabus

GATE 2018 is being organized by IIT Guwahati and the above link directs the visitor to the syllabus page of the GATE 2018 official site. Once there, one can access the full detailed syllabus as per their branch and paper and can come one step closer to their dreams of cracking the GATE.
Though the organization lists the complete syllabus, the students find difficulty in deciding the materials that they must follow in order to prepare themselves as per the GATE syllabus. With a plethora of materials available online and with a limited time, it is very difficult for one to pick up the correct materials and begin their preparation.
Being an engineer myself, I suffered from the same dilemma back in 2017 when I was giving GATE for the first time. However, I would like to suggest some of the books which I found useful during my time -

1. Higher Engineering Mathematics by B.S Grewal -
I found this book pretty useful as the text was lucid and it covered every topic listed in the GATE syllabus. The exercises consist of standard questions and you can even find the difficulty level of the question matching the standards of that of GATE.

2. Electronic Devices and Circuit Theory - Robert L.Boylestad | Louis Nashelsky -
One of the best electronics book I ever read! This is one book that helped me to understand the basic concepts of diodes, transistors, op-amps in a way none other managed to do.

3. Digital Electronics by Salivahanan or Digital Electronics by Kharate -
Both the books are suitable and cover all the topics in a lucid manner. One can go with Salivahanan as this book has all the necessary topics well covered for GATE exam.

4. Basic Electrical Engineering by B.L Thereja -
I found this book pretty useful especially for learning electrical engineering basics and key-terms like power factor, circuit laws, etc.There exist many volumes of this book and I would suggest checking the content before opting for this book.

Though there were many other books that I have gone through, I found the above ones quite important from GATE perspective. Apart from the books, one should also practice previous years questions of GATE examination which are available in GATE 2018 website and can also be accessed here - GATE 2018 previous years questions

Being from an Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering background and with less time in my hand, I had many difficulties in finding out the correct resources for preparing for my exams. I am sure many others from different branch still feel the same. Keeping that in mind I shared my list that can benefit one with a similar background and I will request others to contribute to this initiative.

So Crazy Engineers please share your views and suggestions to help other engineers of your branch by providing your best list of GATE prep books. Help others and experience the awesomeness of being a part of this engineering eco-system.