For many years the study of kanji has been dominated by one book, Remembering the Kanji (RTK) by James W. Heisig. Personally I actually used a different book called a guide to remembering Japanese Characters by Kenneth G. Henshall. However there is now a serious competitor to both of these books and it is The Kodansha Kanji Learners Course (KLC) by Andrew Scott Conning.This year I switched away from Henshall to KLC and I am very happy that I did.It teaches 2300 kanji, which is basically the Joyo (standard use) Kanji plus another couple of hundred common kanji. Which I personally think is about the right number of characters you need to really be comfortable reading Japanese.Its strongest point I think is the very logical order that he introduces kanji in, both the kanji and the example vocabulary build on each other wonderfully.The additional appendixes and indexes are also fantastic.