My tastes are eclectic; they must move with my short attention span. Reading encounters are brief bursts—if I’m not satisfied I will drop a book in the middle of my lounge room and there it will stay, long enough to attract hair-weeds and dust. Books must move me, keep me moving.

I am currently writing a poetic biography of George Balanchine. For that, I have been reading a lot of material on Balanchine (no surprises there), including books about the ballet master, memoirs and autobiographies by dancers, manuals on dance technique and more, all as a supplement to archival research I undertook a while back in the US. At this moment I’m deep in I Remember Balanchine, edited by Francis Mason—a 600+-page collection of anecdotes about the choreographer by those who knew him as ballet master, friend and/or colleague. I love reading contrary perspectives—a collection of reverences about any historical figure is doomed to become a dry hagiography. Who wants to know nothing but the facets of one man’s genius? Not me. Give me dirty secrets, pill popping, the steely shoulder. I collect these and put them in a jar.