Reddit reviews T'ung & Pollard's Colloquial Chinese

The textbook my university used was this one: https://amzn.com/0950857203 - it's not modern but provides a decent no-frills introduction to some common characters. Its age means you can snag a used copy very cheaply.

Fair warning this book is 99% characters, without English explanations of grammar, which are found in the associated pinyin-only (https://amzn.com/0415018609) textbook. In most cases the example sentences are illustrative and you might be able to go without the pinyin book; I haven't cracked it open in some time, but use the character text frequently.