Can anyone recommend a good Japanese Grammar book?

Question:

I am studying Japanese and have found a lot of either discrepancy between online sources, or just that some aspects of grammatical points are covered in some, but not in others (so I cannot confirm the accuracy of a source). I was wondering if anyone else could recommend a few grammar books, so I could have a few more actually recommended sources rather than just the ones I happen upon via Google? At the moment the only actual book I am using is A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. Online sources are: Tae Kim's Grammar Guide, Renshuu.org, and TheJapanesePage.com. Thank you for any help you can give me!

Answer:

My Japanese grammar book is "Japanese Demystified" by Eriko Sato which is a simplified version of Japanese grammar, it is in kanji, romaji and English and it has some exercises at the end of each theory stuff. The book consists of four parts, each covering different important aspects of Japanese grammar such as: how to describe things, describe actions etc etc..

I love that book because of the way it's written. It seems that some Japanese penfriend explains you that grammar not some sort of professor with his incomprehensible terms. So, in short, simple, clear, with kanji, informative, covers everything you would learn during 2 years in a Japanese language course in college in the US (at least it says so).

I don't do grammar drills and I use grammar books only for reference, so I guess it suits me. I use more books, like Essential Kanji Dictionary by O'Neil and various particle books, as I think in Japanese particles play a very important role. My one particle book is "Japanese Particle Workbook" by Taeko Kamiya (it's really mostly a WORKbook) and the other one - "All About Particles" by Naoko Chino (this one is very small and handy published by Kodansha, good size and nicely organized easy to find all particles). Well I use these for reference too (whenever I hear a new particle I just check it in the book).

Then there goes "Basic Connections: Making your Japanese flow" by Kakuko Shoji. Well this one is too advanced for me but I like to read it as a novel just to try and get a feel what it's like to be at that level. Anyway it has great example sentences and it can be useful for a beginner too (just to see what Japanese language looks/sounds like in different contexts).