I love the classics, those being the Brian Daley Han Solo books, Splinter of the Minds's Eye, (the sequel that was never filmed) and the Marvel comics. Back in the day they satisfied that hunger for more Star Wars. (There was no "Extended Universe" moniker back then.) And after the Lando books there simply wasn't anything else to read once the Marvel comic ended a few years after Jedi was released. It seems silly now, but Starlog magazine actually posed the question "Is Star Wars fandom dead?" around 1986 partly because there was literally nothing going on.

Now there's almost a glut of material to choose from. But it's like a big buffet table, you can just take the stuff you really like. I've enjoyed the "Infinities" comics for taking the plotlines of the films into "What If?" territory, and "Tag and Bink" because it has fun with the SW universe like the famous "Troops" video did. The rest I don't have time to keep up with. And it's possible to enjoy Star Wars without knowing the backstory of every Mos Eisely cantina patron.

Some fans do take the EU a little too seriously. There was a lot of anger over the death of a beloved character in Vector Prime.