Books for studying Japanese

Before giving more info on Japanese dialects I thought it would be useful to share some books I used for studying Standard Japanese or 標準語 (Hyoujungo) so that one might have a parameter to compare.
When I started studying Japanese at UFRJ I used the book Shin Nihongo No Kiso I, which was used in the first and second year. For the third and fourth year Shin Nihongo no Kiso II (Honsatsu Kanji) Vol. 2 (in Japanese).

The only problem with these books is that one can't use the books effectively until one learns to read in Hiragana and Katakana. In order to avoid that I started using the book Japanese for Busy People I: Kana Version includes CD (Japanese for Busy People Series), which allows the student to start studying without knowing any Japanese writing system until he/she is able to read.