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Good Bones: Glorious Relics from the Age of Reading
The heyday of reading is probably behind us, but in these shrewd and witty essays Brooke Allen examines the relics of the saints (and sinners) who made it what it was. Focused as much on literary lives as oeuvres, she excavates the glories of August Strindberg, George Sand, Patricia Highsmith, Anthony Powell, Truman Capote and even the great diarist Richard Burton (who also did some acting). There are 22 essays in all, and Allen offers delight and surprise on every page. If the age of reading isn’t yet behind you, get this book in front of you.
264 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 3, 2025
10 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
Brooke Allen
31 books28 followersBrooke Allen's critical writings appear frequently in the New York Times Book Review, the Atlantic Monthly, The New Criterion, The Hudson Review, and The Nation. Her Twentieth-Century Attitudes was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her most recent book is Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers."
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 1, 2026
In what is the most famous quote by Tom Townsend in the movie Metropolitan (1990), he inadvertently sums up his “Urban Haute Bourgeoisie" character intellectualizing experiences rather than having them thus:
“I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the critics' thinking. With fiction, I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it's all just made up by the author."
One could say the same of the modern habit of watching reviews of novels on “BookTok” instead of reading them, or (as what is disturbingly more common in Gen Z’s case) just not having any experiences at all. I had never read a book of literary criticism before, and Tom’s attitude, as well as that of the younger generation, was enough to put me off it. I was wrong.
Allen herself believes this doom about Gen Z no longer reading. The title is elegiac, the cover features a 13th-century ivory reliquary casket, and Allen describes these writers as “beautiful relics, the sacred bones of a literary culture being ground into dust by technology.” assuming that our days of reading are over. Her work slyly does the opposite than eulogize, however — it entices the reader to spend time with these neglected or underappreciated writers. You should do so.
She’s at her best when taking issue with the critic’s reviews, or that of history, as is the case with Anthony Powell being dismissed as a snob or the playwright Horton Foote being forgotten on the crowded stage with O’Neil, Miller, and Wilder — all of whom Allen makes great arguments he usurps.
This book is a feast of a 18th-20th century literary education that every cultural participant should read, if only to mourn what TikTok and the algorithm will take from us. It has left me with a longer list of books to read, authors to explore, and a new love for the literary critic.
“I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the critics' thinking. With fiction, I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it's all just made up by the author."
One could say the same of the modern habit of watching reviews of novels on “BookTok” instead of reading them, or (as what is disturbingly more common in Gen Z’s case) just not having any experiences at all. I had never read a book of literary criticism before, and Tom’s attitude, as well as that of the younger generation, was enough to put me off it. I was wrong.
Allen herself believes this doom about Gen Z no longer reading. The title is elegiac, the cover features a 13th-century ivory reliquary casket, and Allen describes these writers as “beautiful relics, the sacred bones of a literary culture being ground into dust by technology.” assuming that our days of reading are over. Her work slyly does the opposite than eulogize, however — it entices the reader to spend time with these neglected or underappreciated writers. You should do so.
She’s at her best when taking issue with the critic’s reviews, or that of history, as is the case with Anthony Powell being dismissed as a snob or the playwright Horton Foote being forgotten on the crowded stage with O’Neil, Miller, and Wilder — all of whom Allen makes great arguments he usurps.
This book is a feast of a 18th-20th century literary education that every cultural participant should read, if only to mourn what TikTok and the algorithm will take from us. It has left me with a longer list of books to read, authors to explore, and a new love for the literary critic.
Displaying 1 of 1 review