There's a really good soft-cover beginner's handbook called "Turn Left at Orion" by Guy Consolmagno and Dan M. Davis that you can buy at major bookshops such as Dymocks. The book has a companion website:
http://www.cambridge.org/features/turnleft
One thing I really like about the book is that the charts are all B&W hand sketches, rather than photographs, and the views are drawn to represent the views that you might see with typical small telescopes of different aperture and magnification, so you can get a real sense of what you might hope to see in your telescope, and the extra detail that a bigger scope might provide. That is, the sketches show only those stars / nebulae that are actually visible on a good observing night, without "cluttering" with all the glorious detail and colour and myriad feint stars that astro-photography can provide, but that you can never hope to see with your own eyes through your humble telescope or binoculars.
E.g. see the attached screenshots showing views of the Great Nebula in Orion (M42 / M43) as seen through binoculars, a small (3" - 4") Newtonian, and an 8" SCT, as copied from:
http://www.cambridge.org/features/tu...42_and_M43.htm