Hi Billi and welcome. I would recommend Atlas of the Southern Night Sky and some freeware like Stellarium,
www.stellarium.org, so you can load up your observing site, date and time so you can see what constellations are up when. The atlas will then guide you through the bright objects, referred to as DSOs (deep space object/s), and what you are looking at. There are a number of editions of this reference book, I have the original and refer to it often.
There's nearly as many books on astronomy as there types and aperture of instruments.
Enjoy!
Wayne