Anchorhead, you probably would like those Han Solo books, they are 100% pre-ESB. I have them all (in their pre-ESB publication, lacking the name SW and all), I bet they are as easy to find as SOTME. Now I am wanting to dig out all my BU books and start reading.
Now pulling away from the topic again, corellian, if you do a search online for original Lord of the Rings artwork there is some really fantastic stuff. Alan Lee is my favorite. Anyway, maybe some of that artwork will help purge the movie imagery from you mind and help you to develop your own personal image of everything. I am at the moment eagerly awaiting Children of Hurin (a newly published work of Tolkien's) to come in the mail, I can't wait to read it. Don't worry about having seen the LOTR movies before reading the book. It does spoil a lot, but there are still plenty of surprises waiting for you. My absolute favorite bit of narrative from the whole work is the second to last chapter of the six book. I pick up my leather bound copy and read just that chapter alone sometimes. If you really thought the Appendices to LOTR were amazing, I bet you would really enjoy the Silmarillion or perhaps even some of the collections of fragmented bigs of manuscripts that have been published as The History of Middle Earth in 12 volumes.
Uh, now back to our regularly scheduled topic...