[John Cole]

Nice list, especially Blood Meridien and Ulysses, but I'd prefer Moby Dick (how can you understand BM without it?) or Huck Finn.

For non-fiction, I'd go with Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey or Stop-Time by Frank Conroy, perhaps the greatest memoir ever written.

Walden defies categorization: it's non-fiction but better read as a novel, and it's certainly America's Bible. Every American should read Thoreau. ("We can string telegraph poles coast to coast, but what if no one has anything to say to each other." Did he forsee the advent of the cell phone?)

Poetry, sticking in the American grain: Leaves of Grass or Frost for beginners, but it seems that every American poet I've talked to (and I've talked to quite a few) has been deeply influenced by Wallace Stevens, so read his collected poems.

Drama: Oedipus Rex (when you find out who you are do you pluck out your eyes or do you smile?) or King Lear, a play so terrible in its depravity that it was performed for over two hundred years with Nahum Tate's alternative "happy ending." This is the only work of fiction that leaves me shaking.

Special Mention: I am a devoted reader of the personal essay, and as I get older, it's become my favorite form of literature. Philip Lopate's The Art of the Personal Essay is a fine collection. For one essay, though, try to find William Nack's essay on the death of Secretariat, a beautifully written, ultimately moving look at the great horse. It's one of the few pieces of writting that moved me to tears.