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I highly recommend "The Year-Round Messier Marathon Field Guide" by Harvard Pennington, published by Willmann Bell. It will introduce you to some very good star hopping techniques as it guides you to each Messier object in a very systematic way.
Included for each Messier object are straight through & right angle finder charts, telrad circles and sketches of each object in a 45min true field in a telescope.
If I had anything negative to say about the book it would be that it was written with the northern hemisphere in mind which makes a difference to the order in which some objects are observed. eg. In the northern hemisphere objects with the most southern declination would be observed first in an evening so as not to miss seeing them before they set. In the southern hemisphere it is the northern most objects you want to look at first. This is particularly important when doing a Messier marathon.
Note the book can be used all year, not just in March when the marathon is normally held. In the northern hemisphere, all 110 Messier objects can be seen in March since this is the period which the Sun is in an area of sky devoid of Messier objects.
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