I hate about half the EU and love the rest. There is no middle-ground for me.

My advice to anyone interested in picking up a Star Wars book is to read up a little about it first, and then pick and choose the things that you think would appeal to you. Then just ignore the rest, like it doesn't exist. You can find synopsises and reviews online before going to the book store.

I especially dislike when things familiar from the movies come back, again and again. Boba Fett and the Emperor are resurrected. People meet at Cloud City of the backwater planet of Bespin or on the even more backwater outer-rim planet of Tatooine for some peculiar reasons, again and again. I find the concept of Yuuzhan Vong ("New Jedi Order" books) to be almost blasphemic -- does not feel like Star Wars at all. The Ewok movies, I won't even admit to their existence.

I can recommend the X-wing book series and the "Tales" books, which I have enjoyed very much. The X-wing books are mostly about Wedge Antilles and how the Rebellion fights remnants of the divided Empire after ROTJ. These books tell about the characters that stood in the background in the movies and add a few more. I also like the Darth Bane books -- about the Sith a thousand years before TPM.

I also want to say that I think that the books and comic books about the Clone Wars that came out between the release of AOTC and ROTS are much better than the current "The Clone Wars" TV-series and its related books and comics. (even though I think that Karen Traviss is a great sci-fi writer.. I am reading her non-SW books cover to cover). The slightly older books had more depth to the characters -- they were not black and white.(and Asajj Ventress was a hot messed-up girl, not just an ugly evil bitch..). Lucasfilm made an effort here to keep continuity in check between different mediums to a higher degree than before or after: hardcover books, comic books, TV-cartoon (Genndy Tartakovsky) and web-comics.