Not sure if you mean just fiction or if you want non-fiction too, but I'll limit myself to the former. Also, would add say that these are of the top of my head, just some personal faves, and taste being subjective and all that, some will not like them:
The Road (2006, US) by Cormac McCarthy. IMHO, the best novel of the past decade. Post-apocalyptic wasteland stuff, gripping story, very easy to read and could be finished in one sitting.
Netherland (2008, US/Ireland) by Joseph O'Neill. Beautifully written account of a wealthy Dutch investor living in post-9/11 NY, who starts hanging out with small-time Chuck Ramkissoon, a possible gangster who dreams of making cricket big in the US. I hate cricket and I loved this novel. Probably doubly recommended for anyone who actually likes that sport.
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (1981-2005, Japan) by Haruki Murakami. Second shout for Murakami, great writer. Personally prefer his short stories to his novels, (and of his novels I like A Wild Sheep Chase better than his more famous ones such as Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle) but anything by him is good, really.
Neuromancer (1984, US/Canada) by William Gibson. Anyone who's into movies like Blade Runner and The Matrix has to read this. Gibson meshes a hard-boiled detective vibe with virtual reality and cyber-argot. Seminal in SF.
One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967, Colombia) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Going back a bit further, Marquez' novel is a sprawling magic realist epic which reimagines the turbulent history of Colombia as the story of the Buendia family. And of bananas. Very famous opening line: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
Most overrated novel of recent times: White Teeth, Zadie Smith.
And after those, I've had no room for Don DeLillo, John Banville, JM Coetzee, Salman Rushdie, Philip Roth, Douglas Coupland, Jonathan Franzen, Irvine Welsh (though I think he went way downhill after Trainspotting), VS Naipaul, Doris Lessing, JG Ballard, Thomas Pynchon, Nadine Gordimer, Margaret Atwood, Roberto Bolano and Michael Ondaatje, to name just a few from the last thirty years or so who are all highly acclaimed. There are far too many good places to start.
