One of my favourite books is Turn Left at Orion by Guy Consolmagno. It describes the different astronomical objects that you can expect to see and how to find them in the sky. I think it also does a good job of setting expectations because you just won't see Hubble class images from your backyard. The is also a companion website http://www.cambridge.org/features/turnleft/

Turn Left at Orion is a popular suggestion (see sibling comment) but the other question is what do you want to do, what part of astronomy interests you? Amateur astronomy is a vast field and depending on what you're interested in, you'll go in different directions. Do you want to look at the Moon? Planets? Galaxies? And so on. Of course, you probably need a starting point which a good book can provide. See if you have a local astronomy club you can go visit, they will usually have events where you can use telescopes and talk to experienced folks. You can also poke around on Cloudy Nights (www.cloudynights.com), by far the largest amateur astronomy forum online.

Me too! I've also been looking for an astronomy app that's not super complex, and not like a projection of the sky, just a list: "What's in the sky tonight," ordered by most-commonly-wondered about. Like "1) If you look to the West you'll probably see Venus."

NightWatch by Terence Dickinson is often recommended.