Do you recoil in arachnophobic horror at the sight of a spider - or twitch with nomophobia when you misplace your mobile phone? Do your book-buying habits verge on bibliomania? Perhaps you find yourself mired in indecision and uncertainty? (Would it be reassuring to give this a name: aboulomania?)

Our phobias and manias are contradictory and multiple: deeply intimate, yet forged by the times we live in - the commonest form of anxiety disorder, but rarely given a formal diagnosis. Plunge into this rich, surprising and fascinating A-Z compendium to discover how our fixations have taken shape, from the Middle Ages to the present day, as bestselling author Kate Summerscale deftly traces the threads between the past and present, the psychological and social, the personal and the political.

'A new book from Summerscale is always a treat ... Her sub-title might echo Neil MacGregor, but this reads more like a book by Oliver Sacks, with dashes of Roald Dahl' Spectator