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Re:Ask HN: Any Interesting Niche Hobbies? by ggambetta on Wednesday April 08, 2026 @02:11PM (#47694085)
I'm into book restoration, here's a gallery: https://photos.app.goo.gl/1oNxCfKJp4k6yjoZ9

Much less niche, but I'm also really into acting: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=do5PicgU0Jw

Re:Ask HN: Any Interesting Niche Hobbies? by riffraff on Wednesday April 08, 2026 @03:09PM (#47694815)
That's impressive work! But how come the books are in mixed languages? Are they your books? Do you fix books for random people?
Re:Ask HN: Any Interesting Niche Hobbies? by ggambetta on Wednesday April 08, 2026 @05:01PM (#47696215)
Hahaha, good observation :) I ran out of my childhood books (in Spanish) to fix, then I ran out of my GFs childhood books (in Latvian), so at that point I offered my services to anyone in the Google Zürich office. I got books in all kinds of languages I couldn't read, and a few chocolates and bottles of wine for my troubles :)

Some of the most interesting books were especially challenging. One in old German that was missing a couple of pages. It was a popular fairytale so I found the missing content online and a closely matching font, and reconstructed the pages. Another was in an Asian script I not only couldn't read, I didn't know how to sort or even properly rotate some loose pages, so I had to ask the owner. In a few cases when bits of the cover were missing, I found photos online, and printed a patch. Fun times!

Re:Ask HN: Any Interesting Niche Hobbies? by riffraff on Thursday April 09, 2026 @05:08AM (#47701074)
that seems wonderfully varied and entertaining :)
Re:Ask HN: Any Interesting Niche Hobbies? by ttsalami on Thursday April 09, 2026 @10:35AM (#47704317)
Hi! I've been interested in starting book restoration as a hobby as well, are there any resources you recommend to start learning?
Re:Ask HN: Any Interesting Niche Hobbies? by ggambetta on Thursday April 09, 2026 @12:38PM (#47705851)
I learned primarily by trial and error, haven't found any good articles or videos :(