Lore, EveReader and Hydrostatic.

Today I would like to bring up a topic that often goes unnoticed in EVE, to the point where it feels like most people ignore it.
This could be down to ignorance of the subject or a complete lack of interest, it it's the former then please keep reading, if it's the latter you can stop here.
The subject is lore, yes, EVE has a tremendously rich lore behind it, some is player made and most is from the fine folks at CCP.
It can be something as small as landmarks in space, those weird beacons you can warp to that really does nothing, all the way up to one of the commercial novels written about the game.

I first got interested in EVE lore back when they featured the "Chronicles" on the front page.  The Chronicles, for those who don't know, are short stories and novellas written about the EVE universe we all live in.  The fascinating bit about the Chronicles, and indeed a lot of the lore, is that it's not solely about us capsuleers, it's about normal people and events.
The EVE universe is an incredibly dark and horrible place to live, and the lore reflects this in nearly all the stories, the Capsuleers are detached, inhuman demi gods and the little man is always getting stepped on.
It's not cheerful reading, but it is fascinating to learn about the events that shaped the universe we all indulge in.

The political machinations between the Empires, CONCORD and the various pirate factions are quite interesting and well fleshed out in various texts.  The pirate factions themselves are quite enjoyable to delve into, from drug syndicates and "zombies", to batshit crazy cultists and a space Red Cross with some serious agendas.

If the lore isn't anything you've really gotten into, but you think you'd find interesting, I have some recommendations on where to start out.

• The EVE Reader podcast is a great place to start.  It's basically a narration of the CCP EVE Chronicles and will give you a wide coverage of back stories to the EVE universe. The narrator sounds very professional, sound quality is excellent, guest voice actors and production quality is top notch.  I can not praise this podcast enough when it comes to exposing the player base to the lore in nice, bite sized chunks.
• The Chronicles is the stories written by CCP that the aforementioned podcast narrates.
• The Hydrostatic podcast does an excellent job at dealing with the wider lore of EVE, they'll discuss anything regarding lore, focusing often on present events in the universe.  They have excellent guests and panels on various aspects of the lore.  Highly recommended listening.
• There are also excellent books written in the EVE universe, The Empyrean Age, This Burning Life, Templar One and the EVE Source, there are also various other books floating around on Amazon that might be worth checking out.  Most, if not all are available in both paper and Ebook versions and they are a great read.

While you may not have been very interested or even aware of the lore up to this point, three of the four bulletpoints above are perfectly free, will provide you with hours of entertainment and a more meaningful look into the universe you play in.  

I hope you will take the opportunity to check at least some of these out, the podcasters in particular have put work and effort into this and they've done a fantastic job. 
I wish you hours of entertainment and enlightenment.

Amarr Victor.