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Honestly, use any book you can get. The more you use the better your Japanese will be.

I personally use Tuttle a lot and many people don't like it, but I think it's good. I use tuttle kanji cards and I use it to learn to write and read kanji. The cards by Alexander Klask have more of the kanji's actually readings then other books do.

I suggest you get books about Japanese straight from Japan though. You can't beat that.

I suggest you get what you can. Sure the cards have a few flaws, but you have to work through them and figure out the flaws.

Ok I know you said kanji handbook.. but I can't read the first part(I think I see "japanese" in there tho.)

Where can I get these kanji books?

Personally, I'm finding "Remembering the Kanji Volume 1" by James W. Heisig a really good book for learning the meanings and how to write each kanji (without learning how to read). However, if you follow the recommended method in the books, you're meant to learn the meaning and writing for all the kanji included before you learn how to read them, which puts you a bit behind people who are learning the readings and writings at once (they can put them to use right away, whereas you can't). But despite what Heisig says, I don't think you completely sabotage yourself by learning how to read some kanji even while you're still going through the first volume. When it came to learning kanji in class, actually, I found a lot of what I had learned in "Remembering the Kanji" to be quite helpful.

I've heard that the second volume of the "Remembering the Kanji" series (which is for reading) isn't necessarily revolutionary or better than other kanji books (it just groups the kanji by readings, not giving you all the readings for one kanji at once). The main point Heisig has, it seems, is to remember readings by example vocabulary, which other books suggest as well. I've heard that "Kanji in Context" is pretty good for reading.

Anyway, I do highly recommend "Remembering the Kanji." It really is quite effective in helping you remember. (It makes use of your imagination rather than rote memorization).

Here's a sample (includes the first 275 kanji in the book. i.e., the ones for which he provides a story with which to learn them) Remembering the Kanji sample

Is it bad that it took me longer to read the katakana? I really need to practice my katakana reading speed, lol.

Well... as long as you now hiragana and katakana. You can learn the kanji and meanings. It doesn't have stroke order for each one, but they have a section in the back showing a bunch of kanji's strokes.

Basically you can look up kanji by reading and it gives you all the kanji, the JLPT level, english, mandarin, cantonese, and korean meaning, and a list of words or sentences that use it.

But you can learn how to read the kanji from it. So yeah! biggrin

I'm learning kanji too, I have a hard time sticking to my own study plan. D=

My mom is going to buy some kanji flash cards for me when we go to Japan. We're getting White Rabbit Press kanji cards. I also have this (slightly outdated) book with a list of 2000 kanji seperated into 10 levels. I'm going through it slowly.

I don't think I'll really be able to learn kanji well unless I have some reading material, and write a bit too.