Ranking the AFI albums

I saw AFI supporting the Offspring at the start of 2001 and thought they were fine. I didn't think about them again until the end of the year, when I saw what their albums looked like and got enamoured with their mix of cartoon gothic and faux-vintage artwork, maybe even liking the imagery more than the music like some kind of superficial teeny bopper, I can't say for sure.

Then they moved on and so did I, compartmentalising their surprisingly brief "gay Misfits" era as the specific AFI I nostalgically liked. Did they really get worse, or does it just depend on what year you happened to turn 16? Did they get better again? Were they ever any good in the first place?

Here are my The Top 15 AFI Albums and Worthwhile EPs (those with mostly exclusive tracks, not just re-recordings or repurposings). Listened to properly and reading along with the lyrics like an authentic teenager, no less in touch with the American high school context than I ever was.

Retroreads 1993–1996: Some Kid Books

Even if there was any way I could remember every single book I read as a child, I wouldn't want to waste time talking about them all. Most of them were rubbish and rather childish. Some of them were fantastic.

To keep things relatively sane, here are some of the more substantial books* I remember reading in and out of school in juniors (age 8–11, pre Star Trek). That's the earliest I can go where I can still imagine possibly reading them again for fun, and might possibly have done so as a grown man from time to time. Maturity is just a number.

I won't add all of these to the book list, that would just be embarrassing. School books in yellow.

* I bet he breaks this rule immediately.

Retroreads 1997–2000: Mainly Trek Books

The cusp of high school is as far back as I can reasonably* go while still trusting my memory and juvenile judgement. Accidentally getting into Star Trek at eleven was the end of childish pursuits and the beginning of one-note obsessive fandom for a few years (which was obviously totally grown-up and stuff).

No, that's not fair; I liked Red Dwarf as well.

School books are yellow. You'll also recognise them for not being about Star Trek or aliens generally.

* You passed that point of no return a long time ago, mate.

Retroreads 2001–2007: Study Books and Recreation

I was required to read a lot of books for my English literature degree, but I didn't always, and rarely all the way through. Uni's not really about the studying is it?

Here's what I remember reading from GCSE level (my most illiterate period ever) through A-level to degree level, for work and pleasure. Yellow for study books, in case you somehow couldn't tell them apart. It does get trickier when the study books eventually start to get good.

Retroreads late 2007: Edinbureads, Vol. 1

After graduating from a literature degree where I'd done the minimal reading required to blag exams, I suddenly became a voracious reader. I reviewed a couple of books a week, among other things, to earn a modest unemployment income (so modest it didn't cover my low-budget lifestyle), and since I had nothing else going on, I read some more books in my free time. It's not that impressive, most of them were graphic novels.

Here is that, largely based on this.

Retroreads 2008–2010: Edinbureads, Vol. 2

Not books about Edinburgh; rather, the books I can remember reading while I lived there. Not counting the first few months, which was a ridiculously prolific period that needs its own entry to avoid breaking the page.

Library books, comic downloads and audiobooks soundtracking walks around town and mindless data entry. I didn't keep notes, so this incomplete list of transient tomes can never be comprehensive and I should stop worrying about it. I wish I could stop worrying about it.

Retroreads 2010–2012: Travelreads

Back for another round of increasingly hazy, some would say worthless retrospectives covering the books I can remember reading or having read to me during the first two-and-a-bit years of this blog's timeline since I left the UK. Because this is vital information.

Alternating between audiobooks read on the go – forever associated with irrelevant visuals of national parks and exotic cities – and physical books chosen from a despairing selection on hostel shelves to keep me company on buses.

Surely this futile odyssey will end here and I won't attempt to recall all the stacks I borrowed from Edinburgh Central Library over the previous three years? (Is there somewhere I can access that information?)

Retroreads 2013–2014: Filling the Gaps

It's a bit strange to keep a compulsive checklist of everything you read, but even stranger to arbitrarily start doing that at 29 years old, so there are gaping gaps in bibliographies. ("I see you enjoyed that obscure C-tier Alan Moore spin-off slightly more than you expected to. Tell me, have you read 'Watchmen'?")

If I've done a book fair and square, and can remember it well enough to write a pithy comment for posterity, I can add it to the big list. Here are some books I read in the year or two before I started keeping track.

I could keep backtracking all the way to undocumented childhood favourites, but that would be insane. So I probably will.