IRISH poet WB Yeats once observed that “out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.”

It’s an unnecessary distinction that feeds into lazy ideas about public versus private, propaganda versus art. On the other hand, it is sometimes hard to find ways of writing that simultaneously address “others” and “ourselves.”

There are brilliant new examples of how to do it, one of them being Martin Thom’s Fair (Infernal Methods, £5), a satirical attack on the DSEI arms fair held in London every year. Its specific target is the selling of weapons to the Saudi government for use in Yemen. Part of the proceeds from the sale of the book is going to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade.