Spectator Books of the Year: The myth of meritocracy

I must admit that I write a beautiful essay about my dad in My Old Man: Tales of Our Fathers (Canongate, £14.99, edited by Ted Kessler), but it would be nearly as good without me.

James Bloodworth is one of the most elegant and passionate (not an easy combo) writers about politics in this country today, and in The Myth of Meritocracy (Biteback, £10) is especially eloquent on the way the diversity divas have diverted attention from the lack of opportunities for a whole swathe of underprivileged children put beyond the pale of pity by their risibly named ‘white privilege’.

We Don’t Know What We’re Doing (Faber, £7.99) is the first book of short stories by Thomas Morris, a young writer whose descriptions of the mundane magic of everyday life make one blissed out beyond envy. And while I very much enjoyed Richard Cohen’s How To Write Like Tolstoy (One World, £16.99),