i sugest you go to your local book store, grab a whole bunch off the shelf, sit down and look through them. I love doing this. sometimes i will jot down one recipe out of a whole book, other times there are so many things that i like about the book i buy it. its a great way to review before you buy 
I don't like going to my library, but I did sit in B&N yesterday looking at cake and cupcake books. There are just so many. I ended up not buying anything because I had to leave before I finished looking. I am hoping that someone else may have some ideas. What I noticed most about the selection is that there were either books with lots of ideas for decorating or different recipes, but not any that I saw that had both. But then, I didn't go through every book. I had to leave. I looked briefly at the Cake Bible as I have heard a lot of great reviews on that, but it seems well above my mastery level. I hope someone has some good suggestions!
I have "Hello, Cupcake" (by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson) which has very cute designs in it (they use store bought icing and ziploc bags, I just use my cake decorating stuff) but some of the cupcakes are very time consuming and have a lot of components. But any cupcakes I have made from this book people love. They use a lot of candy and cookies that seasoned decorators can change out for royal icing and piping techniques.
I also have "A Baker's Field Guide to Cupcakes" (by Dede Wilson), I have not made anything out of this book yet but it has great pictures and has cupcakes categorized by holiday.
HTH
I love "Crazy About Cupcakes"! It is a recipe book first and a decorating book second, but I've loved every recipe that I've tried. Also, they have cute designs that you can keep fairly simple or take to another level. They also have 4-6 designs for each major holiday and season plus ones for entertaining or themes.
I checked it out at my library first and is one of the few that I actually went out and bought after I checked it out multiple times.
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