The following books are roughly in order of difficulty and sophistication. James is the best but the hardest; Alger is the corniest but the easiest. You also don't need to be limited by this list...
Henry James, Portrait of a Lady, etc. (My favorite. James's style is somewhat difficult but wonderful if you're a strong reader. He was clearly the greatest "literary" American novelist of his time; he continues to exert a huge, huge influence. He has a sophisticated, complex style and was one of the first novelists to focus deeply on individual consciousness. Most people like Portrait of a Lady best.)
Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, etc. (Novels about high society in NYC in the late nineteenth century)
Willa Cather, My Antonia (A very beautiful novel about being an immigrant, losing your parents, and a deep but bittersweet and unspoken love)
Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, etc. (Entertaining books about American life out west. Don't read Huck Finn; we'll read it together.)
James Weldon Johnson, Autobiography of an ex-Colored Man (A novel about the color-line in America: a young bi-racial man needs to choose between the black side or the white side.)
Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (muckraking novel about working-class immigrants in Chicago, the nastiness of the meatpacking industry, etc.)
Jack London, The Call of the Wild, White Fang, etc. (adventure stories about dogs and wolves in Alaska)
Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons (story of the decline of an American aristocratic family and their urban neighborhood, tied in with suburban sprawl and the rise of the automobile. Very popular novel in its time.)
Horatio Alger, Ragged Dick, Mark the Match Boy, etc. (rags to riches stories; corny version of the American Dream. They're pretty easy reads.)
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