KANA Book

This is the only book you would ever need to help you learn the kana. When you have the book, use WAZUNOKANA to drill kana and learn your 600 word vocabulary.

Book / Audio Japanese courses

"Japanese for Busy People" has been the most effective way to learn conversational Japanese, easily and quickly, for many years.

Reference Dictionaries

This small kanji reference is tried and true. If you don't want to spend too much on a kanji dictionary, this is an extremely useful reference for the 常用漢字 (Jōyō Kanji).

For a more comprehensive dictionary, take your pick from the following larger volumes. For a good comparison, read this article. My own preference? The New Nelson, by Haig.