re: So I want to start reading some Star Wars books

No, not really. I've read some comics and a few of the books (ones that were already mentioned), but my thing is many people worked hard on those stories and fans invested hours, days, weeks, months, and years buying and reading them to only have the mouse come out and say, "frick you. We don't care about your fandom." And with the way that Disney has treated Kathleen Kennedy since she's been in charge of LucasFilm, has been down right appalling. Did Lucas piss fans off by CGIing everything and changing who shot first, sure, but that was one little thing. He also embraced the EU and loved what authors had wrote.