diff --git a/pyrethink/__init__.py b/pyrethink/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9217919
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pyrethink/__init__.py
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+from __future__ import absolute_import
+import rethinkdb as r
+import logging
+import random
+import time
+
+class Rethinker:
+    logger = logging.getLogger('pyrethink.Rethinker')
+
+    def __init__(self, servers=['localhost'], db=None):
+        self.servers = servers
+        self.db = db
+
+    # https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb-example-webpy-blog/blob/master/model.py
+    # "Best practices: Managing connections: a connection per request"
+    def _random_server_connection(self):
+        while True:
+            server = random.choice(self.servers)
+            try:
+                try:
+                    host, port = server.split(':')
+                    return r.connect(host=host, port=port)
+                except ValueError:
+                    return r.connect(host=server)
+            except Exception as e:
+                self.logger.error('will keep trying to get a connection after failure connecting to %s', server, exc_info=True)
+                time.sleep(0.5)
+
+    def run(self, query):
+        while True:
+            with self._random_server_connection() as conn:
+                try:
+                    return query.run(conn, db=self.db)
+                except (r.ReqlAvailabilityError, r.ReqlTimeoutError) as e:
+                    self.logger.error('will retry rethinkdb query/operation %s which failed like so:', exc_info=True)
+
+    def results_iter(self, query):
+        """Generator for query results that closes the connection after
+        iterating over the results, for proper support of cursors, which fetch
+        from the server more than once."""
+        success = False
+        while not success:
+            with self._random_server_connection() as conn:
+                try:
+                    results = query.run(conn, db=self.db)
+                    success = True
+                    for result in results:
+                        yield result
+                    if hasattr(results, 'close'):
+                        results.close()
+                except (r.ReqlAvailabilityError, r.ReqlTimeoutError) as e:
+                    self.logger.error('will retry rethinkdb query/operation %s which failed like so:', exc_info=True)
+
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d3ee4a9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+import setuptools
+
+setuptools.setup(
+    name='pyrethink',
+    packages=['pyrethink'],
+    classifiers=[
+        'Programming Language :: Python :: 2.7',
+        'Programming Language :: Python :: 3.4',
+    ],
+)