The Shell and Rood Society is a four-year fellowship of undergraduates at The Catholic University of America, bound by a single promise: to read one hundred books together before they graduate, and to live a common life of friendship, prayer, and physical vigor.
Students read the one hundred books across four thematic years: The Road, The House, The World, The Last Things. Reading works from Dante, Dostoevsky, and Flannery O’Connor to Sir Gawain and The Lord of the Rings, members meet every two weeks with Institute fellows around a single table. Every seminar ends in a shared meal.
The society is open to any Catholic University undergraduate in good standing. There is no application, no essay, and no grade point cutoff. A student joins by signing the Register and making the promise aloud. Freshmen take on the full Hundred, and sophomores, juniors, and seniors join on a prorated track of 75, 50, or 25 books.
