As of the past year, my intake of books has increased tremendously. Call it the “reading bug,” or whatever seems appropriate, but going from reading one book every two months to about two a month is fairly significant.

Topics range from autobiographies, social theory, web design, and fiction.

Here are the last few –

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

President-elect Obama writes of finding his own identity, chasing the trail left behind by the Kenyan father he met only two times. Starting the book with the news of his father’s passing away, he takes us through a journey of his upbringing, which spanned across the globe — Honolulu, Jakarta, New York, Massachusetts and eventually, on to settle into Chicago, Illinois.

The book is a raw, inner guide to the young president-elect as he tried to find his place among his peers, and in the world, as he constantly felt out of place. His stories are vivid, his travels are vast, and the in-depth revelation in Dreams from My Father is a perfect introduction to the mind of the soon-to-be President of the United States of America; his balancing of good and bad, just and unjust, black and white.

Definitely pick this up if you’re looking for insight as to what went through the mind of the man set to be The Man in a matter of days — written well before he was the iconic figure he is today.

The Forever War by Dexter Filkins

As a journalist with The New York Times, Filkins is given vast resources for digging into the inner cities and towns within Afghanistan and Iraq, during their some of their most contentious times. His stories paint a raw picture of American occupation in a foreign land — Iraq mostly — and the struggle in keeping peace when embedded in areas where insurgents are scattered about, and not always easy to weed out.

Forever War talks of the struggle between Iraqi and Afghan residents coping with foreign occupation, all the while trying to keep their families out of harm from insurgents terrorizing their land. It also talks of the many risks American troops face, laying their lives on the line to bring peace in countries they are not always welcomed “with open arms.”

In this book, Filkins does not editorialize his stories. They are simply reported as they occur, and in their raw detail each one reveals the relentless spirit of the many who are trying to bring peace to these war-torn countries. In the process, we really get a glimpse of the difficulty and life-risking maneuvers a journalist like Filkins must go through in order to relay the stories from beyond borders where stories of old used to never escape.

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Once again, Gladwell makes the reader put on a thinking cap and take a look into what makes a person successful. Is their success a credit to being geniuses at what they do, or is it also thanks to fortunate placement in a time or place? Outliers takes us through an in-depth look into situations where some “geniuses” are born into situations with great opportunities. The 10,000 hour rule — where to be a true and complete expert at a particular field, one would generally need to spend over 10,000 hour practicing — can only be achieved if someone like Bill Gates lives in the right area (Michigan) who gave him a unique opportunity to practice programming at a very young age. The child in the inner city single-parent home who gets chosen to attend a charter school where classes are more engaging than public schools, and because of their more intense workload, those who graduate gain a higher quality of education later in life.

Mostly, Outliers is a view into situations where it is revealed that success can be achieved through other means than being born a genius. It reveals cultural blockades that tend to occur even when it doesn’t seem immediately clear — in one instance he reveals how Korean Airlines went from being nearly shut down to becoming one of the safest airlines worldwide, all by addressing the way Korean culture traditionally communicated in the work place.

This book is a great, short read for those of you interested in finding out how some of the more conventional thoughts of success may not be entirely correct. Why did Joe X become a millionaire, and one of the best at what he does, and John Y not get beyond his initial show of intelligence, even when they both scored equally as high on aptitude tests? Was it that Joe X had more ambition than John Y? Or was it that Joe X happened to be born into the right situation where opportunities to succeed were readily available? Gladwell does not say this is the case all the time. However, he does make you ponder the endless possiblities of what less fortunate children could be if they were placed in a better situation to succeed.

Currently reading:

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

In a bold attempt to increase my general productivity — at work, in freelancing and hobbies — in 2008, I took to utilizing resources around me. Books, websites and mentors helped tremendously. What came about was a more motivated, efficient me, with a few more kinks to iron out — but who out there is perfect, really?

Using Twitter, I followed my favorite Web Designers — Jason Santa-Maria, Chris Coyer, Cameron Moll, Jeffrey Zeldman, to name a few. Their tips and links to resources on their Twitter updates and websites have been incredibly helpful in working on the craft.

Using Facebook, I found a way to keep up with hundreds of friends from both yesteryear and yesterday, from this continent all the way to the one on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Thanks to Amazon and Barnes & Noble, I managed to compile a quite lovely book collection of all sorts of genres — from Web Design, to Non-fiction to Fiction, to literary classics to language books — for reasonable prices. (Double thanks to the family and friends who passed along books as gifts!)

Using the tips from Zen Habits, I managed to work my finances into a manageable level of order, unclutter my desk, work on the minimalist approach to Life Hacking, and set goals moving forward. (Hence, this particular post on the 2009 outlook.)

One of the tips from ZH was to make goals known outright, so those around you can help motivate and keep you in check if focus is temporarily lost. Here we are, looking into 2009 and setting a few main goals:

Write weekly. The goal is to keep up writing, even about nothing. Though Twittering is essentially a bunch of persons writing 140-character Seinfeld story plotlines, at least ideas and thoughts are expressed. Practice makes perfect, although I’m not sure where on the 10,000 practice hour scale I am on — In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, the 10,000 hour number is given as how many practice hours it takes to be a  true certifiable expert in a particular field — I do recognize repetition will help in the long-run.

Stay far, far away from credit cards. While the instant gratification of having a certain stylish, entertaining electronic devices in-hand immediately is great, there is a reason we are in the current financial crisis. Credit cards are part of the problem. Self-discipline, in spite of what the “burning desire of want” is, needs to be contained. Work on saving for necessity first, then the want-items last. Leaving the plastic cards out of the equation makes life much easier.

Increase freelancing business. Available to write, create e-marketing campaigns and websites, the work I completed in 2008 was a learning experience. Worked on invoicing and time management, coordinating deadlines with both paying and pro-bono clients. The goal here is to market better once a full portfolio site is completed. I will announce that site everywhere once it is live.

Keep reading. Last year, I read more books than ever before. In college I had a few textbooks a year and the occasional leisurely read. In 2008, I managed to skim through books with topics like: biographies, web design, marketing, literary classics, even down to the random “6 Word Memoirs” book worth mentioning because of its many great one-liners.

Keep happiness at the forefront of all things in life. Be it work, play or family, happiness is the key to prosperity. Finding what it is that makes you happy — including working at a place you enjoy — and focusing on how positive internal happiness and positive thinking translates into success is key. I have not read The Secret, though I hear its topic is essentially what those first lines just mentioned. I’ve lived by this mantra for a while, had those moments where focus was lost, but found my way back and continue to maintain smiles throughout. I recommend this for all, but this is a key goal in sustaining all of the others.

Using those goals, 2009 should be prosperous and full of joy. Through the process, I expect fun and the occasional hurdle. The biggest hurdle we tend to encounter is self. Allowing distractions to veer you off the path happens if you allow it. But good self-discipline will push you through to attaining a clear, victory-filled bigger picture.

Plenty of cheesiness in this list, but I will quote my least favorite saying and retire it from this point on: “It is what it is.” Take from this what you will, and trash the rest! But you know where I am focused at moving forward, and I appreciate any motivation and assistance through the process.