BOOK OF RUTH by Robert Seydel is THE BOOK OF and THE BOOK. Look:

Book of Year

Although it’s only officially out today (from the sublime Siglio Press), and it’s only May, it’s already the Walser & Co Book of the Year for 2011. Also, June will be Robert Seydel Month, by dint of. Look for a review, and much more, soon. In the meantime, some early returns:

Peter Gizzi: The magical qualities of Robert Seydel’s work never cease to astonish me. He conjures something visionary at the edges of language and the fragile material world. Who knew such light could come from torn paper? What joy to finally have this long-awaited book in hand!

Maggie Nelson: Behold Seydel’s “Ruth”—banker by day, scriber of daily wonders by night, whose art of “damaged things made” pours forth from a “healing imagination [with] animals in it.” Rich with “white magic,” as Joseph Cornell put it, Book of Ruth is an enchanting, mischievous, often deeply moving act of invention and homage.

John Yau: Book of Ruth is a modern fairy tale unlike any other, arriving from a corner of the world where fiction and fact are interchangeable. . . . Open this book and lose yourself. Out of bits of ephemera held together by cloud and glue an entire universe will rise up to greet you.

Read and see more at BOMB Magazine and at Siglio Press, which got a S P R A W L i n g shout-out yesterday from Andrew Leland, ex-Believer, but still doing the best job.

BOOK.  OF.  RUTH.

(e v e r y w h e r e)

(35 @ POWELL’S)

(worth twice that)

(in San Francisco)

(in New York City)

(Tell Your Library)

(21.15 @ Walmart)

(25.55 @ Amazon)

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