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DC Palter

Goodreads Author

Born

in The United States

Website

https://dcpalter.com

Twitter

dc_palter

Genre

Mystery, Thriller, Suspense

Influences

Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie, Monty Python, Kurt Vonnegut

Member Since

February 2013

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DC Palter is a startup founder and venture investor, with twenty-five years experience leading tech companies. His articles on venture funding are followed by tens of thousands of startup founders.

Living in Japan for many years as a research engineer, he became the first non-native person certified by the Japan Society as a Japanese language instructor. He’s the author of Colloquial Kansai Japanese, a guidebook to the Osaka-Kyoto dialect published by Tuttle, and editor-in-chief of Japonica, a daily journal of Japanese culture.

He is the first-ever winner of the Little Tokyo Fiction Contest for short stories in both Japanese and English. His first novel, To Kill a Unicorn, was a 2023 American Fiction Awards finalist for Best Mystery Novel a ...more

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DC Palter’s books

Average rating: 4.09 · 166 ratings · 77 reviews · 5 distinct works • Similar authors

	To Kill a Unicorn 4.01 avg rating — 77 ratings — 4 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
	Colloquial Kansai Japanese: The Dialects and Culture of the Kansai Region: A Japanese Phrasebook and Language Guide by DC Palter (Goodreads Author), Kaoru Slotsve 4.08 avg rating — 71 ratings — published 1995 — 6 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
	Countdown to Decryption 4.41 avg rating — 17 ratings — 4 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
	Satellites and the Internet it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2003	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
	To Kill A Unicorn (Japantown Murders Book 1) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 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

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DC Palter's Blog

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

One of my book clubs was reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery. I heard it had some relevance to Japan, and a quick search online showed that one of the main characters was named "Kakuro Ozu." Hmmm.

I almost didn't pick up the book. There are too many novels that feature Japan as a setting or include a Japanese character or two, written by people who know nothing about Japan and t Read more of this blog post »

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Published on May 15, 2014 19:02 • Tags: barbery, elegance-of-the-hedgehog, kakuro, translation

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DC is Currently Reading

DC Palter is currently reading

The Book of I

by David Greig

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Jan 17, 2026 06:26AM

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The Wayfinder

by Adam Johnson

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Dec 09, 2025 11:44PM

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DC Palter rated a book liked it Flashlight by Susan Choi (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
Jan 17, 2026 06:27AM · like
DC Palter is currently reading The Book of I by David Greig	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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DC Palter rated a book did not like it No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood (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
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DC Palter rated a book really liked it The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer (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
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DC Palter is currently reading The Wayfinder by Adam Johnson	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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DC Palter rated a book really liked it The Money Trap: Lost Illusions Inside the Tech Bubble by Alok Sama	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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DC Palter rated a book liked it Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer's by Charles Piller	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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DC Palter finished reading Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer's by Charles Piller	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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DC Palter rated a book really liked it The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America by Karen Abbott (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
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DC Palter rated a book liked it The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain	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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