Cake decorating books?
 

I'm interested in going beyond just spreading icing on
my cakes. I'd like to learn about decorating them.
I've spent about an hour looking at choices on Amazon,
and I went ahead and ordered TWO-HOUR PARTY CAKES by
Carol Deacon, but I would like to know if you have
any experience with them and if you can recommend any.

I am also interested in some basic pointers on the
various decoration materials. I get the impression
that there are at least a couple major mediums, stan-
dard icing and fondants. Does that sound right? So
the ones that talk about "sugar" decoration are tar-
geting icing, right? And fondant is usually rolled
out and put on. Is that correct? I could be totally
wrong here. Any enlightenment would be appreciated.
Thank you, Michael