In this invaluable horticultural manual, twelve great authors put down their pens and pick up their spades to 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; from Ibsen on the family secrets revealed during the planting of a fruit tree to Neruda on pruning roses at the end of a romance. In Brecht's mini opera, a courageous mother's fight to protect her tender young potatoes from the army reveals the tragic consequences of a crop being harvested too soon. On Zola's allotment, a striking miner finds life more brutal and perilous than anything he imagined at the coalface. Carver's anti-hero attempts to repair his failing marriage by replanting a neglected hanging basket, but his effort proves too little, too late. And Brett Easton Ellis's brand-obsessed hero, drawn into the garden by the promise of carnage, finds in horticulture the perfect outlet for his demons. As in Kafka's Soup and Sartre's Sink, each piece is illustrated in the style of a famous artist, from David Hockney to Gustav Klimt. Inspired, botanically accurate and utterly hilarious, Machiavelli's Lawn will appeal to green-fingered book lovers everywhere.