Ah, summer. The season of sun loungers, overpriced airport snacks, and the frantic last-minute decision of which book to cram into your already-overstuffed carry-on. But according to science, that book isn't just a random pick - it's a mirror to your soul, or at least to your anxieties.

Edgar Dubourg, a cognitive scientist at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, tells us that your reading list is 'basically a map of your personality.' When you reach for a thriller or a romance, you're not escaping your psychology; you're pressing on 'very intuitive and very old parts of your brain.' Fiction, he says, doesn't invent new emotions - it pokes at pre-existing ones, like instincts. So, that beach read is basically therapy with a body count or a happily-ever-after.

Valerie van Mulukom, a senior lecturer in psychology at Oxford Brookes University, has done the heavy lifting of categorizing our literary cravings into four anxiety-based clusters. Her research suggests our 'existential insecurities' dictate whether we grab an epic adventure, a relationship drama, a murder mystery, or a historical tome.

If you're a crime novel devotee - like me, and let's be honest, who isn't after the last few years - you're probably fascinated by threat and danger. That's anything from true crime to Stephen King's nightmares. The UK bestseller lists are full of such titles, including Dan Brown's 'The Secret of Secrets,' Claire Douglas's 'The Family Friend,' and Patrick Radden Keefe's 'London Falling.' So, if you're packing one of those, you might want to check your windows are locked.

Prefer a bit of romance? Then your insecurities likely revolve around relationships, both romantic and platonic, and your social standing. Titles like Virginia Evans's 'The Correspondent' or Alice Oseman's 'Heartstopper Volume 6' might be in your bag. Nothing says 'I worry about my reputation' like a good love story.

Science fiction and fantasy fans, on the other hand, are apparently more concerned with the state of the world. If you're finally tackling 'Game of Thrones' on the beach, you're probably worried about climate change or war. The bestseller lists offer 'Duskbound' by Bree Grenwich and Parker Lennox, 'Red Dwarf: Titan' by Rob Grant and Andrew Marshall, and 'To Flame a Wild Flower' by Sarah A Parker for your world-saving (or world-ending) fantasies.

But what if you prefer facts over fiction? Dubourg reassures us that narratives matter, not whether they're real. So, biographies and histories are just as revealing. If Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's 'Regime Change,' Arundhati Roy's 'Mother Mary Comes to Me,' or Sarah Wynn-Williams's 'Careless People' are your picks, you're still telling the world something about yourself.

So, next time you grab a book, remember: it's not just a story. It's a psychological profile in paperback, and it's judging you as much as you judge its cover.