I will cosign Jill Lepore.

A couple other options worth considering:

• George Brown Tindall's America: A Narrative History is, as far as I'm aware, the most popular text for undergraduate US history survey courses. I myself read a now-ancient second edition that I got as a Christmas present longer ago than I want to admit, but one benefit about this title being a popular book for university courses is that it goes through many updated editions (I believe it's on its tenth?). Even though Tindall passed away some 12 years ago they are updated/co-authored by David E. Shi.

• Eric Foner's Give Me Liberty! An American History also is a well-regarded textbook (it looks like they market it as prep for the Advanced Placement US History course). I haven't read this in particular, but I've read a lot of Foner's other work (his Reconstruction and Fiery Trial) and he is a great historian.

Both of these will be 900 or so pages, and I think a beginner's history of the US being that length will be unavoidable. There are shorter things ... Paul Boyer's American History: A Very Short Introduction from the Oxford University VSI series manages to squeeze through everything in 140 pages, but personally something that brief runs the risk of confusing someone brand-new to the subject.

Of course, at the other end of the page count is the Oxford History of the United States series, which are great, and clock in at 800+ pages per volume (nine volumes published and three more supposedly in the works), so maybe one 900 page book isn't so bad after all.

It may come up as a suggestion, but I would probably skip Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States (an askhistorians FAQ on it is here, more recent thoughts on it from u/CharlieNWilson here, and some further thoughts by u/freedmanspatrol here ). In addition to issues mentioned in those links, Zinn's work assumes a familiarity with the "official" version of US history and so from my own reading of it, it would be difficult to use as a standalone beginner's narrative US history.

If you want a slightly different perspective, I suggest Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folks. It’s a history of the American South from the immediate post-civil war (1865) to about 1900. It’s also an excellent work of contemporary ethnographic research into how people lived at the time.

On the surface, it may seem that in order to understand America you need some big history that starts from the colonial period and goes until the present day, ending with musings about the future. I enjoy these too, but they are hard to digest without much context and they contain a big bias. When we study history we’re usually given a beginning in which the story is set in motion. The standard history of America will start with revolution and constitutional design, because those are the big topics of the 1770s-1800. This is an America created at the same time as republican France and based in enlightenment principles.

In a lot of ways though, America in the relevant sense is a product of the civil war more than of the revolution. Our history should be thought of as beginning at the time of German and Italian unification. A continent united in heretofore unimagined, mechanized bloodletting over the question of black men’s freedom, rather than a small, coastal colony liberated by wealthy men from the yoke of imperial taxes. And this is what this book shows. It shows you America roaring from the ashes. A broken heap turning into the hemispherical empire and global power that merits books be written about it.

Now additionally, the writing is beautiful. See this passage:

The first decade was merely a prolongation of the vain search for freedom, the boon that seemed ever barely to elude their grasp,—like a tantalizing will-o'-the-wisp, maddening and misleading the headless host. The holocaust of war, the terrors of the Ku-Klux Klan, the lies of carpet-baggers, the disorganization of industry, and the contradictory advice of friends and foes, left the bewildered serf with no new watchword beyond the old cry for freedom. As the time flew, however, he began to grasp a new idea.

A last note before I finish my rant. Tyler Cowen talks about how to study a new country and recommends starting small. I don’t remember where he wrote or said this, but it really stuck with me. He suggested that if one wants to learn about India, a better approach than a heavy history book would be a book about Indian textiles. This would provide a thread to follow through such a massive history, if that makes sense. Similarly, understanding this particular American moment will give you the context and enthusiasm needed to learn its broader history too.

Okay one more quote just for fun:

Perhaps Atlanta was not christened for the winged maiden of dull Boeotia; you know the tale,—how swarthy Atalanta, tall and wild, would marry only him who out-raced her; and how the wily Hippomenes laid three apples of gold in the way. She fled like a shadow, paused, startled over the first apple, but even as he stretched his hand, fled again; hovered over the second, then, slipping from his hot grasp, flew over river, vale, and hill; but as she lingered over the third, his arms fell round her, and looking on each other, the blazing passion of their love profaned the sanctuary of Love, and they were cursed. If Atlanta be not named for Atalanta, she ought to have been.

If you're looking for a comprehensive account of U.S. History, I'm pretty taken with Jill Lepore's "These Truths: A History of the United States," which just came out a month or so ago. It's long (~800 pages), but Lepore is the rare modern historian who writes well for a broad audience, and the book manages to both cover a wide swathe of history and to provide a coherent argument about enduring American values.