the Jedi Apprentice series. It fleshes out Qui-Gon and helps me remember why, even though he didn't do too much in The Phantom Menace, he was a likable character. I'd venture a lot of them are written better than the prequels themselves, despite the adolescent nature of the series.

Jedi Apprentice is fantastic. Shatterpoint is a nice departure from the general prequel crap.

The Han Solo Adventures are still the best to me. Closest to the escapist spirit of the films.

The Thrawn trilogy is a close second. Still great after all these years. I, Jedi is pretty good from what I remember. You can't go wrong with most of the Bantams. From the NJO on I just gave up. I've read numerous books since then and have officially just given up.

Other notables I can think of: Han Solo trilogy, Shadows of the Empire, X-Wing series, Courtship of Princess Leia, Jedi Academy Trilogy, Hand of Thrawn Duology, and some of the "Tales from" collections.

Star Wars Chronicles.  

I really like the Han Solo Adventures, as well as the Galaxy of Fear books. I also am barely reading the Thrawn trilogy for the first time. Still in the first book it's...alright I'm hoping it gets better.

The making of star wars, based on the unpublished work of Charlie Lippincott.

Rinzler edited it for publication.  He may have authored the book but the raw interviews and accounts of the making from 1976 on was done by Charlie.

One of the unsung heroes of star wars success, he was there in 1976 at the world science fiction convention to promote the film.

I still think Charles Lippincott deserved a co author credit.

Its like Lucas taking credit for the authorship of the star wars trilogy.  When other people wrote them.

Favorite EU character is Mara Jade by a longshot.

I'd have to go with the Thrawn trilogy.

It's a toss-up between The Making of Star Wars and The Secret History of Star Wars... And maybe Skywalking. OH GOD DON'T MAKE ME PICK JUST ONE!

My favorite(s) are The Han Solo Adventures by Brian Daley. They're well written, very interesting, have that depth of character & atmosphere, that attention to scene detail that Daley was so good at - and - they're free of the burden of all the stuff that is just so fucking tired to me about Star Wars, i.e. The Empire, The Sith, Vader, R2, 3PO, etc.  There is just so much more that can be done with the vast, dark, unknown universe we were introduced to in 1977.  Brian Daley did it with these three novels.

The only other book I've read is Splinter Of The Mind's Eye.  I enjoyed it also.  Since it was commissioned by Lucas as the sequel to Star Wars, it has some familiar characters and themes, but it's also not bogged down by Lucas' tampering or universe shrinking.

This is the last of my Star Wars books.  I donated about all of the EU stuff to my local library.  The stack of pages on the top shelf are copies of all the scripts I found on the net, plus my Indy comics.

Sluggo said:

This is the last of my Star Wars books.  I donated about all of the EU stuff to my local library.  The stack of pages on the top shelf are copies of all the scripts I found on the net, plus my Indy comics. 

 

  I about died and went to heaven after seeing this picture!!!

I would say:  SW Chronicles,  Jedi Quizbook,  Making of Star Wars/TESB.

I enjoy flicking through The Essential Guide to Characters - released in the mid '90s, it's refreshingly free from prequel references (see C3PO's back story, for example).

When I was a kid I had this Star Wars activity book which I'd like to see again. I can only remember a couple of pages from the book: there was "how to make a Darth Vader dime bank" (being a British kid I had no idea what a "dime" was), and a Vader afterimage-type optical illusion (stare at the centre of this image, then at a blank wall, and Vader will appear before you). Did anyone else have this?