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Alexander Boldizar

Goodreads Author

Website

http://www.boldizar.com

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Boldizar

Genre

Fiction, Humor and Comedy, Science Fiction

Member Since

April 2012

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Alexander Boldizar was the first post-independence Slovak citizen to graduate with a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. Since then, he has been an art gallery director in Bali, an attorney in San Francisco and Prague, a pseudo-geisha in Japan, a hermit in Tennessee, a paleontologist in the Sahara, a porter in the High Arctic, a consultant on Wall Street, an art critic out of Jakarta and Singapore, and a police-abuse watchdog and Times Square billboard writer in New York City. He now lives in Vancouver, Canada.

‍Boldizar’s writing has won the PEN/Nob Hill prize, a Somerset Award for literary fiction, and other awards, including a Best New American Voices nomination. His novel, The Ugly, was a best-seller among small presses in the U ...more

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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Alexander Boldizar I worked as a summer associate at a French law firm in Prague in the mid ‘90s, shortly after the country split. At the time I often spoke English in …more I worked as a summer associate at a French law firm in Prague in the mid ‘90s, shortly after the country split. At the time I often spoke English in cafés if I if I didn’t want to be asked whether I could really afford the coffee. A table full of Czechs next to me didn’t realize I was Slovak, and I overheard them making fun of Slovaks as dumb mountain men who grunted and threw boulders at each other.

I absolutely loved the image. When I was younger, I had a bad habit of playing dumb whenever I could see someone start off with that assumption—I was large, drank too much, fought a lot, and had an East European love of the absurd that North Americans sometimes mistook for stupidity—and when I heard that dumb mountain man stereotype I wanted to run with it and turn it on its head.

At the same time, Harvard Law really was a very alien place for me at first. At one point in the book, Muzhduk gets an anonymous letter stating that his admission devalued the Harvard name for everyone at the school. That was, nearly word for word, taken from a real letter I received in my first year. It was a very careful place, where nobody knew if the person next to him or her might end up being a supreme court justice, or the president of some little country. Or big country. People who had lawyers for parents knew that the most valuable thing at Harvard wasn’t the education or even the name, but the connections—all in a hypercompetitive context. I preferred a directness that made me look like a caveman in comparison.

I had no interest in writing a One-L type neurotic complaint about law school, but I thought it would be fascinating to bring a real mountain man to Harvard Law and see what happened.(less)

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Alexander Boldizar’s books

Average rating: 3.88 · 691 ratings · 145 reviews · 2 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Man Who Saw Seconds 4.02 avg rating — 418 ratings — published 2024 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Ugly 3.67 avg rating — 273 ratings — published 2016 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

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Alexander rated a book really liked it Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 05, 2024 02:23PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton
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Aug 07, 2024 08:11AM
Alexander rated a book it was amazing Assassins Anonymous by Rob Hart (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Fantastic, fast-paced page-turner that I couldn't put down. I was visiting NYC (from Canada) for the first time since before covid. I started on the plane and then, instead of the city, jazz, plays or friends, I just wanted to sit in a cafe and read ...more
Jul 25, 2024 12:33PM · 3 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Assassins Anonymous by Rob Hart. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Assassins Anonymous by Rob Hart
Alexander rated a book it was amazing The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jul 17, 2024 11:58AM · 1 like · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart
Alexander rated a book it was amazing Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Alexander rated a book it was amazing The Ugly by Alexander Boldizar (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jun 13, 2024 09:36PM · 1 like · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Ugly by Alexander Boldizar. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Ugly by Alexander Boldizar
Alexander rated a book it was amazing The Man Who Saw Seconds by Alexander Boldizar (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
May 31, 2024 06:49PM · 1 like · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Man Who Saw Seconds by Alexander Boldizar. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Man Who Saw Seconds by Alexander Boldizar
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May 22, 2024 05:08PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Man Who Saw Seconds by Alexander Boldizar. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Man Who Saw Seconds by Alexander Boldizar
Alexander rated a book it was amazing Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
May 12, 2024 03:57PM · 4 likes · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

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Quotes by Alexander Boldizar (?)

“People who do not eat butterflies will wear their clothes the wrong way, and people who wear their clothes the wrong way are inviting lemmings inside." -- Muzhduk the Ugli the Third”
― Alexander Boldizar

tags: humor, lawyers, lawyers-in-hell, philosophy-of-life, science

2 likes

“What we the people have is a minimal, once-every-four-years type of power, while nearly everything in our lives is controlled by others.”
― Alexander Boldizar, The Man Who Saw Seconds

1 likes

“But that political hangover from the Flea House was flushed out every Friday morning by the knowledge that his family was safe because of the fences that the police built with their “thin blue line.”
― Alexander Boldizar, The Man Who Saw Seconds

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Alexander’s Quotes

tags: humor, lawyers, lawyers-in-hell, philosophy-of-life, science

2 likes

“If I have to have a past, then I prefer it to be multiple choice.”
― Alan Moore, Batman: The Killing Joke

tags: batman, joker, the-killing-joke

373 likes

“Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners.”
― George Carlin

31 likes

“What Writing Is: Telepathy, of course.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

tags: memoir, writing

19 likes

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