recommendations for the civil engineer's bookshelf?

Most engineering firms will have library for everyone's use. Hopefully you kept your notebooks from your classes. Also, once you choose a particular speciality (such as structural) you will fine references that you like and will use. I think if you create a personal library from a list created by another engineer, you will not use most of the references. Good luck

Well, You could easily spend $20,000 just to get the basic standard text books, e.g. Wastewater Engineering Treatment and Reuse (M & E), Design of Municipal WasteWater Treatment Plants (ASCE), Water Treatment Plant Design (AWWA), Hydrogeology (Prentice-Hall), International Building Code, ACI 318, The Civil Engineering Handbook, Structural Analysis (Wiley), Principles of Foundation Engineering (Thomson/Brooks/Cole), Design of Reinforced Concrete (Harper Collins)etc.. These examples are just a small portion of my personal library that i have had to collect over the last 20 years that i use regularly in my projects (Actually they are sitting at my desk for the two projects I have been working on this month) . Each library is developed based on the specific field sof emphasis that you practice. The down side is that you need to find the books that are of use to you in your specialty, and there are many books that are useless, but you can not readily determine this from the cover or limited reviews even. So you can end up with 3 books on Reinforced Concrete Design to get all the information you need for the variety of projects, or you can end up with 3 books of HDD to get enough information to properly support your development of adequate contracts and specifications consistent with Standards and Practices in the industry.