Mark Crick

Twelve great authors offer their top tips on gardening, from Sylvia Plath’s struggles with autumn bulbs, to J. D. Salinger’s helpful hints on growing from seed. In Cormac McCarthy’s hands a landowner’s trip to the potting shed becomes a right of passage from which he will return transformed. Zola’s striking miner finds life on the allotment more brutal and short than anything he imagined at the coal face. Carver’s anti-hero plants up a neglected hanging basket in a doomed attempt to repair his relationship with his wife. And Wodehouse’s hero, anticipating a visit from his aunt, realizes that the right choice of house plant may well save him from the ignominy of marriage. Inspired, botanically accurate and utterly hilarious, Machiavelli’s Lawn will appeal to green-fingered book lovers everywhere.