The Fly Trap

A New York Times Notable Book of 2015

“A badass Swede you’ve never heard of. . . . One of my favorite books of this year was ‘The Fly Trap,’ by the writer and entomologist Fredrik Sjöberg, who appears to be the Geoff Dyer of Sweden: funny, astute, intellectually voracious, simultaneously self-absorbed and self-critical.” —Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, “The Best Facts I Learned from Books in 2015”

“Fredrik Sjöberg is like the Karl Ove Knausgaard of entymology . . . completely charming . . . his real focus is the human imperative to find meaning in daily experience. It’s a subject he approaches in a wry and disarming fashion. . . . But 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 Fly Trap is such an ardent, informed and sustained brief on behalf of the planet that a plea for this or that piece of green legislation seems unnecessary. The very existence of this subtle book is a powerful argument for vigilance.” —Kevin Canfield, The Daily Beast
 
“Seductive reading, a quirky and wide-ranging meditation on the deep pleasures of collecting, obsession and the natural world. . . . Sjöberg’s forthright and unapologetic unpretentiousness is close to liberating in an age when nature writing is so often quasi-theological, veering routinely between awe and homily, sometimes even in the same sentence. . . . He has a gift for identifying fascinating and unconventional careers and rendering them in ways that bring out a deep and affecting longing, a longing for love, beauty, and connection that appears to drive not only his protagonists but Sjöberg himself. . . . The straightforwardness of The Fly Trap is the product of the skill of its author and the sophistication of its structure. Somehow, Sjöberg carries you along on his many excursions and detours, always interesting but often only loosely associative, maintaining the momentum, pulling together a digressive skein of stories across centuries and continents, gently but determinedly insisting by example that calm, patience, good humor, care, and attention and open-mindedness are their own rewards.” —Hugh Raffles, The New York Times Book Review

“Entertaining . . . whimsical . . . rich . . . iconoclastic . . . brilliant.” —Richard Conniff, Wall Street Journal

“Write brilliantly and readers will follow you anywhere—even into a swarm of hoverflies. That’s one takeaway from The Fly Trap, a charming, off-the-beaten track, humorously self-deprecating memoir by Fredrik Sjöberg, a biologist who muses and amuses about his baffling passion for hoverflies . . . a paean to some of the tiniest wonders of the natural world, but even more to the benefits of intense focus . . . filled with delightful observations . . . The Fly Trap stands as proof that great writing can lend a buzz . . . to even the most unlikely subjects.” —Heller McAlpin, NPR

“In sharing the experience of solitude and reflection, Sjöberg invites readers to see through his eyes, in language that is often poetic, sometimes inscrutable.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A memoir that reads like summer trapped within the pages of a warm and nourishing book. . . . Although the details about hoverflies are endlessly fascinating, what really elevates this book is Sjöberg’s promise to have his memoir concentrate on his two-pronged mission: ‘to say something about the art and sometimes the bliss of limitation. And the legibility of landscape.’” —Poornima Apte, BookBrowse.com (5 Stars, Editor’s Choice)

“A rare masterpiece . . . graceful, poetic, astonishing and—yes!—absolutely thrilling.” —Jyllands-Posten (Denmark)

“Full of charm, the insects are almost incidental; . . . it’s really a book about how to find meaning in life.” —Melissa Harrison, The Times (UK) (a Nature Book of the Year)

“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.” —Carl Wilkinson, The Financial Times (UK)

“[Sjöberg] writes with infectious passion.” —Paul Binding, The Independent (UK)

“An intriguing defence of the selfish, even hedonistic pleasures of natural history. Thomas Teal’s translation captures Sjöberg’s quiet, hypnotic style, his deadpan jokes.” —Jennie Erin Smith, The Times Literary Supplement (UK)

“Wry, digressive and packed with fantastically clipped observations.” —Patrick Barkham, The Guardian (UK)

“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 he wrote it for me.” —Tomas Tranströmer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature