Yes, I'm pretty sure charset support in Postgres is at the database level, not the table level. See here: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/interactive/multibyte.htm...
(No book recommendations for something like e.g. "High Performance MySQL"? Well, nice with no fanatical fanboys in this area, at least. :-)
The current 8.3 documentation is here: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/
I especially enjoy the sections on indexes: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/indexes.html