Pretty much everything from Les cent livres du siècle and Les 100 meilleurs livres de tous les temps. See also Quels sont les classiques littéraires à lire absolument ?, 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime, Alan Kay from Viewpoints Research Institute recommends his reading list for beginners, and many other similar lists. Derek Sivers' Books I've read seems to be a really good list (for non-fiction books). Five Books seems to be a good resource as well. My reference as of 2020 will be The Greatest Books, which is an aggregated list generated from more than a hundred individual lists.

Atheism / religion

Biography

Business / entrepreneurship

Comics

Computer science / software

Economics

Education

Essays

Fiction

Health

History / anthropology

Humor

Interviews

Meditation

Misc

Music

Parenthood

Personal development

Philosophy

Physics / cosmology

Psychology

Science

Social sciences / sociology / politics

Switzerland

Technology

Travel

Vegetarianism