Some of my favorite SW novels back in the day were the "Tales From Mos Eisley Cantina" and "Tales From Jabba's Palace" books. Basically every chapter just takes one of the random background characters from those scenes and tells their whole story. Really interesting way to get a lot of back story about characters that never seem to get any other real love.

Also, the story of the rancor trainer is really heartbreaking (seriously). Good stuff.