My favourite and first text is "Modern Russian I and II". These are 1960's era textbooks developed for the foreign service. They have companion cassette tapes for all 20 lessons. It is the most thorough covering of every aspect of the language I have seen. A lesson (there are 20 in all) can take you weeks or more to master, and the nice thing is you can listen to ALL PARTS of the lesson as spoken by native Russians.

Of course, this book is waaaayyy outdated, but it is great. Even some humor mixed in. I checked it out from the library, so I am not sure how much it costs to buy. I have found it is carried quite often at public libraries though.

Ahh.... I still remember the first Russian sentence I ever heard one year ago. "Вот мы и на аэропорта внукова!",,,, and it still makes no sense....sigh... memories.