If you're looking for books, I would recommend the Japanese From Zero series. You can buy them on Amazon, and I think they are really great because they teach you grammar, vocab, kana, and in later books kanji. You can also get separate books for hiragana and katakana if you want extra practise! I think there are about 5 books in the series, but the first few should give you a basic understanding of the language. And memories is a really great website to help you remember the characters, but I find that writing them out is beneficial. I hope this helped!

I really recommend learning hiragana and katakana as soon as you can. I'm still fairly early on in the learning process myself, but I felt much more capable after learning the characters. It gives you a better feel for the language flow.

Please use this website for learning Japanese, Hiragana, and Katakana! It's free. Good luck! www.memrise.com

i bought a workbook at barnes and noble, you can probably find one in the language section of most larger bookstores or order on amazon.com. I agree better off to learn them early on rather than later. I am early ing my learning but can read hiragana and katakana and have started learning kanji.