What Japanese learning books would be a good gift for a friend? She loves Japanese culture and anime (we both do actually). She was taking Japanses lessons at one point at her school, but she graduated and naturally was unable to continue classes. Since her birthday is coming up I was planning on getting her a self-teaching Japanese book or two.
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i've heard good things about Japanese for Busy People

I'm currently going through My Japanese Coach for the Nintendo DS and it's pretty good with the included games for review

I've got the Genki textbook as well.. not too far in but it's pretty easy to get into.. good use of graphics

If I may jump in too
Agree, Genki is a good choice. Also Minna no Nihongo. But make sure you get the one that's in Kana and not Romaji. This comes with an audio CD too so you can do the listening exercises at the end of each chapter.

Also, a great resource that I have been using for a long time now:
A Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Japanese Grammar
It's a good idea to get them as a complete set of 3 dictionaries so you will always have a great grammar resource at any point in your Japanese language study The authors are Makino Seiichi and I forgot the other one, sorry (Published by the Japan Times)