The Fly Trap

Praise

One of the Best Books of the Year
The New York Times * Kansas City Star

“Seductive . . . a quirky and wide-ranging meditation on the deep pleasures of collecting, obsession and the natural world.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A charming, off-the-beaten track, humorously self-deprecating memoir. . . . Filled with delightful observations. . . . The Fly Trap stands as proof that great writing can lend a buzz (sorry!) to even the most unlikely subjects.” —NPR

“The Geoff Dyer of Sweden: Funny, astute, intellectually voracious, simultaneously self-absorbed and self-critical.” —Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker
 
“Mesmerizing. . . . A shimmering and elusive grace pervades Fredrik Sjöberg’s evocation of his life and work as a hoverfly expert.” —Nature

“Sjöberg traces a sort of erratic flight path of ideas and associations, at once whimsical and yet laden with erudition and a deep feeling for the natural world and our place in it.” —Financial Times
 
“[A] wry, at times poetic memoir.” —The New York Times
 
“The writing is whimsical, digressive and pleasingly devoid of anything too weighty or purposeful.” —The Wall Street Journal
 
“Delightful . . . at once informative and often humorously digressive. . . . A humane man of wide-ranging curiosity, [Sjöberg] writes with infectious passion.” —The Independent
 
“Full of charm, the insects are almost incidental. . . . It’s really a book about how to find meaning in life.” —The Times (A Nature Book of the Year)
 
“Poetic . . . [Sjöberg] transforms a niche subject into one of widespread appeal, musing on the pleasures of country life and the line between avocation and obsession.” —Kansas City Star
 
“An intriguing defence of the selfish, even hedonistic pleasures of natural history. —The Times Literary Supplement
 
“As much about life as about entomology. . . . One of the pleasures of Sjöberg’s book is that he honestly explores the psychological motives behind collecting.” —Santa Fe New Mexican
 
“I often return to The Fly Trap; it remains close to my heart. The minute observations from nature reveal sudden insights into one’s life. Sometimes I almost think that [Sjöberg] wrote it for me.” —Tomas Tranströmer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
 
“Charming . . . and original. . . . A bit like dinner with a witty European intellectual—wry, digressive and packed with fantastically clipped observations.” —The Guardian
 
“Sjöberg . . . thrives in the indistinct boundary between science and literature. . . . The real message of the book . . . is the quiet pleasure to be found in reading the fine print of knowledge.” —New Scientist
 
“[A] completely charming memoir. . . . The Fly Trap isn’t just a series of artful ruminations on the timeless quest to understand the natural world (although that would be enough, wouldn’t it?). Sjöberg is a genuinely funny guy.” —The Daily Beast
 
“It is hard to believe, given the lucidity of his book, that [Sjöberg] could be a better entomologist than he is a writer.” —Sydney Morning Herald
 
“Insightful . . . [Sjöberg] approaches, at his best, the familiar, intimate and wistful power of that other Scandinavian literary giant, Karl Ove Knausgård. . . . [He writes] in a manner that oddly emulates those same elusive, beautiful, imitative hoverflies he has devoted so much of his life to.” —PopMatters