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The Fly Trap
The Fly Trap | Fredrik Sjoberg
4 posts | 4 read | 5 to read
A Nature Book of the Year (The Times (UK)) “The hoverflies are only props. No, not only, but to some extent. Here and there, my story is about something else.” A mesmerizing memoir of extraordinary brilliance by an entomologist, The Fly Trap chronicles Fredrik Sjöberg’s life collecting hoverflies on a remote island in Sweden. Warm and humorous, self-deprecating and contemplative, and a major best seller in its native country, The Fly Trap is a meditation on the unexpected beauty of small things and an exploration of the history of entomology itself. What drives the obsessive curiosity of collectors to catalog their finds? What is the importance of the hoverfly? As confounded by his unusual vocation as anyone, Sjöberg reflects on a range of ideas—the passage of time, art, lost loves—drawing on sources as disparate as D. H. Lawrence and the fascinating and nearly forgotten naturalist René Edmond Malaise. From the wilderness of Kamchatka to the loneliness of the Swedish isle he calls home, Sjöberg revels in the wonder of the natural world and leaves behind a trail of memorable images and stories. From the Hardcover edition.
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AnneCecilie
The Fly Trap | Fredrik Sjoberg
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This is not the tagged book, but it‘s the same one. This one is about butterflies, more precisely the butterflies in Stockholm‘s skerries. And there‘s quite a lot of them, some more common than others. I love butterflies so I loved learning more about them.

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grace.fell
The Fly Trap | Fredrik Sjoberg
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Reading in bed again with cats and tea. I've been enjoying this book a lot when I have the time and mood to read it. It slows me down, in a good way, this meandering and thoughtful view of an unlikely subject (hover flies). Unfortunately I was blind-sided by the Lacey Flint thriller crime series by Sharon Bolton and have been so distracted by that. Unfortunate only in that I lead a book discussion of Fly Trap this Monday night (1/2 way though)

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HedgeWhitney
The Fly Trap | Fredrik Sjoberg

I have some advice for anyone who decides to read this book: keep a writing utensil, Post-It flags, etc. handy because there are so many good passages that you will want to mark them for future reference and reflection.

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HedgeWhitney
The Fly Trap | Fredrik Sjoberg
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@Litsy I definitely feel this way about reading books. #24in48 #readathon

"Or it might be better to say that all of us need to flee blindly from time to time so as not to become copies of the world's expectations, and maybe, too, to give us the courage to remember some of those great, bold thoughts that make a child get up in the night..."