Originally Posted by ursula

no of books, unnnnn,even i didnt remember how many they actually were.But i had told you my mechanism of making my own notes.Believe me,i worked on the same pattern i.e. i just cleared my concepts and studied articles and always tried to reproduce the material in simple worlds.Take, for example,cold war ,it is started at the time when Truman informed Stalin that Americans were getting successful in making atom bomb.Later on a tug of war started ,forwarded by war mongering and counter offensive initiations from both sides;even america intimidated china by making nexus with japan in 50 Dwight eisenhower initiated nuclear first strike capability and dominos proposed to halt the communist insurgency, but domino theory was halted in vietnam war;while, in Atlantis it successfully achieved its objective.
The best i can recommend you is to study and make notes from wikipedia,owing to the fact that it uses non technical jargons and has substantial linkages.For example, ive discussed domino theory and just going to wiki you can get further informations.
Lastly your subject selection matters alot.in case of pshchology, sociology or geology and many others ,you will have more difficulty in grasping the main theme of international relations,since if a person doesnt know what realism is, will definitely know nothing in ir.Some of the best books that i've studied are berziznskis grand strategy and american primacy,Kaplans monsoon and revenge of geography.These books have helped me in geography as well,for theories just rely on wiki,for cold war;Rockets and People, Hot days of the cold war is a good book.
Boris Chertok, Asif Siddiqi, National Aeronautics and Space Administration is also a good one.
Take out a single topic and study enough until you get the whole picture.For example,Globalization:think about it from different angels such as economy,politics, sociological point of view and its pros and cons,since i've also opted environmental sciences so i will have to analyse the impact of globalization on global climate as well.Lastly,is it good enough at regional level such as Saarc ,whether it is bridging the gap between north and south. and so on.....

Remember, if you follow my ascribed sequence and even take out a sigle pdf file from google than i'm betting, you will have good command in the subject.Ir is not book oriented field of study, but it is conceptual in origin.Even i have found many discrepancies among the historians about the starting and termination of cold war.Similarly one theory explains that 'world order' is in 'anarchy ';while, other explains that it is exploitative.
Some contend for democracy and other views the capital neofacism as ultimate objective of modern globalism.In short,just clear your concept and generalized your idea.

P.S.it doesn't matter how many books i've studied, but it definitely does matter how much i have retained.