Reddit mentions of Sumerian Grammar (Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section One, the Near [And] Mi) (English and Sumerian Edition)

The two books I'd recommend are

http://www.amazon.com/Sumerian-Grammar-Research-Ancient-Eastern/dp/0890031975/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_3

and

http://www.amazon.com/Sumerian-Grammar-Handbook-Oriental-Studies/dp/1589832523/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_2

The former is probably more useful for actually teaching yourself, the second is useful in conjunction with the first or with a professor. It'll teach you quite a lot about the grammar. I would consider looking into Akkadian if you're planning on teaching yourself, in which case these are what you want: http://www.amazon.com/A-Grammar-Akkadian-John-Huehnergard/dp/1575069415/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374683864&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=akkadian+john+heunergaard

There's more resources and a better understanding of Akkadian, so it's less of a clusterfuck to learn.

I know D O Edzard's totally wonderful reference grammar is available, and cheaply, but Thomsen put so much effort into example selection and providing different viewpoints.

I contacted the publishing house that owned the rights back in maybe 2008 to talk about them selling the rights, or at least considering a reprint. Unfortunately, I got no response at the time, but that could easily be because the publisher in question was northern Scandinavian, didn't know me from Adam, and didn't really care a whole lot about this particular volume.

For sure.

By far the best introductory text is John Hayes' A Manual of Sumerian Grammar and Texts. The book has twenty-five lessons; each starts with a sign list with transliterations and translations, and then presents a tablet for you to decipher. The author's decipherment is on the next page. (I'm explaining this really shitty, I'm tired.) It is currently out of print but you can find it on amazon or just google it and find a pdf. I can send you the pdf too.

When learning languages I like to learn a decent amount of lexical items before grammar. Concurrently or after some Hayes, which includes great grammar explanations itself, I would pick up Edzard's new(er) Sumerian grammar. It's very concise and will put Hayes' sometimes scattershot information into order. It'll also allow you to feel smart since you can translate the texts in Hayes better than he did originally in some cases. Amazon or also an easily locatable pdf.

I also use the Foxvog grammar.

This is quite late, but now that I'm more knowledgeable about resources for Sumerian I would like to recommend some:

Thomsen's [The Sumerian Language] (http://www.amazon.com/Sumerian-Language-Introduction-Grammatical-Multilingual/dp/8750036548/) is very useful to have even as a beginner and has been the traditional way of learning Sumerian. Good luck getting a hard copy of it though, its been out of print, so it's very difficult to obtain. Maybe try looking for it at a library? I'm sure there are online sources for it though.

Jagersma is also a good source for learning the grammar if you can't get your hands on Thomsen. Fully available online. It was his dissertation, so expect more up to date terminology and currents trends for understanding the grammar.

Edzard's Sumerian Grammar is also good.

With respect to each author, there will definitely be different perspectives on how to understand Sumerian, such as verbal forms, dimensional prefixes, conjugation prefixes, etc. It's up to you to decide what suits you best. My experience with Thomsen is that some of her explanations are ambiguous and the examples she uses can be overwhelming for a beginner (at least it was for me). There are definitely strengths and weaknesses to each of these grammars. Nonetheless, the resources provided are the basics to understanding the grammar and are no doubt useful and adequate for transcription and translation.

I want to stress that in order to the learn Sumerian grammar you need to work side by side with texts/cuneiform. It's definitely difficult to get a grasp of everything while reading the grammar without having lessons similar to Hughnergard's Grammar of Akkadian to guide you. It would be useful to start out with brick inscriptions and such. This is where John Haye's Manuel of Sumerian Grammar and Texts is useful because it provides lessons and such. I'm also confident you can find this easily. Hope this is helpful. Good luck.

Edit: How can I forget Labat. Definitely essential with understanding the development of sign forms and also provides signs values (French). There's also EPSD, but there are plenty of weaknesses of using this due to a lack of context, but nonetheless useful. Yeah... unfortunately there are a lot of expensive books in this field.