I found this little book to be very very helpful for me when I was trying to tech myself Italian. It covers, succinctly, all of the mechanics you need to get by in most situations - conjugation, verb tenses, phrases, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc. I would say if you're just looking for a "phrase book" you might want to look elsewhere. It depends on how much you want to learn and how much time you are willing to put in. This was my primary text resource, along with a pocket sized Italian-English dictionary. I also used audio courses (Earworms) rather extensively for practice.