Check out this book from the library if you really have to read it. I regret having bought it based on the recommendation of a clerk at Barnes and Noble (saying it was like the DaVinci code but different). The book is more about how intelligent the authors are and a guide to Princeton than it is about the Hypnerotomachia Poliphilli.This book could have been so much better given the pre-text. I had really wanted to learn more about the subject but became drowned in pointless paragraphs and action text that came out of nowhere. It bored me to the point that I just finished the book without caring anymore about what the riddles eventually meant.Even the second story of the personal lives of the students was boring. To add, the college students didn't act, speak or behave like normal college students (but I didn't go to Princeton nor did I major in English literature).Perhaps being intelligent isn't directly correlated to telling a story well.