Carpet diem Tales from the world of oriental carpets

Poet Bradley (A Stroll in the Rain) unfurls a rich and surprisingly intimate account of his entry into the world of oriental rug--collecting. After his interest was sparked by a Persian throw rug inherited from his great-grandfather, what began as an "absorbing distraction from life's adamantine realities" morphed into a fixation that brought him around the world; into contact with unscrupulous salespeople, devoted artisans, and colorful fellow obsessives; and often into conversation with the past ("An antique kilim" can make "you feel you are shaking hands with history"). What emerge most vividly are the detailed portraits of the relationships he forms (after an Iranian rug salesman he'd been in touch with disappears without a trace, Bradley "keep thinking I've caught a glimpse of him: sitting in the last row of a country auction, hovering at the edge of the crowd at an antiques fair") and his genuine reverence for the meticulousness of the craft ("Weaving is a medium in which one cannot revise. You can touch up a canvas or rewrite a stanza, but you can't... erase your mistakes while making a carpet without tearing it apart"). Elevated by a poet's patient attention to detail, it's a captivating window into the culture and history of an artisanal craft. This will appeal to anyone who's fallen deeply for a new passion. Photos. (May)

A tale of carpet collecting and its ardent Arabian knights. "Some achieve addiction, some have addiction thrust upon them," says Bradley of his adventures and misadventures in oriental rug collecting ("rug" and "carpet" being interchangeable terms). His is an unexpectedly engrossing account of a decades-long preoccupation with carpets, their history and lore, and his interactions with kindred connoisseurs, dealers, restorers, and disreputable players in the trade. A poet, olive oil importer, and former sommelier, Bradley is a member of New York's Hajji Baba Club, a group devoted to the appreciation and collection of fine rugs, antique and otherwise. With changing tastes, the demand for oriental carpets may not be what it once was--a 17th-century Persian rug fetched $34 million in 2013--but Bradley's personal journey of discovery, learning, bargaining, acquisition, and lamentation, which began in 2003, is no less fascinating. Even those not immediately drawn to the subject will find his weave hard to resist. Carpet isn't a product so much as a culture of considerable complexity, and Bradley's book is an education. His take on the strategies of bargaining--a chess (or fencing) match with feints and misdirection, moves and countermoves--is particularly enjoyable. Fine carpets, says the author, are a testament to painstaking manual skill: "There's nothing that requires more craftsmanship than weaving a fine oriental carpet….As decorative items, they go in and out of fashion, but collectors have never abandoned them." Bradley's prose is crisp, fresh as a new loaf of bread, and not without a certain elegance of description. He can paint vivid word pictures, especially of New England and Asia. Bradley augments his book with engaging asides, a detailed appendix, a glossary of terms, a bibliography, and 11 full-color photographs. The allure of artisanal rugs is afforded the treatment it deserves. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.