A Japanese Reader: Graded Lessons in the Modern Language by Roy Andrew Miller

At some stage in the near future I will actually start discussing my continuing learning experience, but I can't resist mentioning one more book.  This one was first published in 1962.  In its 75 lessons, it takes you from the kana syllabaries to advanced continuous prose, and it's pretty comprehensive—it even covers the now-abolished old kana usages.  The Japanese texts are in vertical script and start at the back of the book; the corresponding reading notes are presented 'normally' from the start of the book.  Flicking backwards from the easy texts to the hardest ones shows what a mountain to climb the written Japanese language is.  It's a beautifully-produced book, as many of the the Tuttle ones are, and I want to work through it, eventually.  It requires some knowledge of the spoken language, of course.

The Wikipedia entry for Miller points out that he's an Altaicist, which I understand is a minority position among Japanese scholars.  It can be disconcerting to read about academic disagreements about a language that you're learning&mdash.  Particularly when I'm on rocky grammatical ground, I don't like being reminded that linguistics isn't a hard science.