Peter O’Brien, fashion designer

I HAVE a book habit. I like searching around second-hand bookshops, especially in London, though there aren't many left. Biography is my thing. The Secret Lives of Somerset Maughamby Selina Hastings (John Murray, 2009), is great.

I hate when biographies go too far back in the family tree so that you see the subject’s distant forefather tilling a field somewhere. I want them to get straight in to bringing the person to life.

I just found the most amazing book at Beattie Forbes on Charing Cross Road – Alan J Lerner's autobiography, On the Street Where I Live(WW Norton 1978), putting together the stories of how he created Camelot, My Fair Ladyand Gigi(I love musicals, except Andrew Lloyd Weber, who I hate).

I'm also reading an incredible book I spotted for £19 in London, Cecil Beaton, Exhibition Catalogue, Barbican Gallery, London(1986, Weidenfeld and Nicolson).

Beaton is one of my heroes; he was not a very nice man but, technically, he was a genius. The book is a catalogue of everything – photos, designs, stage sets. Very hard to find.

As told to Kate Holmquist