The Fly Trap: A Memoir - Softcover

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

Fredrik Sjöberg is an entomologist and lives with his family on the island of Runmarö, in the archipelago east of Stockholm. He is also a literary critic, translator, cultural columnist, and the author of several books.