jk wrote:
What books or tools would you suggest for a beginners library or
woodworking shop?...

As someone else noted, depends strongly on what you're interested in
and/or intend to do. I'd suggest two for general knowledge--Tage
Frid's Joinery and Hoadley's Understanding Wood, both from Taunton.
Both are of some age now, but are timeless despite that.

I would emphasize that learning hand skills is important even in the
days of power tools and that quality hand tools (while not inexpensive)
are still, for the most part, less expensive than similar quality power
tools. A set of quality chisels is invaluable. I noticed someone else
mentioned sharpening as well as an indispensible art/skill.

As for the Hoadley recommendation, it's amazing how many folks I find
working wood that really have almost no actual understanding of the
material...this isn't casual reading, but is essential knowledge to
understand much of the "why" of long-term developed practices.

Taunton Press, for the most part, publishes quality materials. Other
than, perhaps, some of the summary article compendiums, you probably
can't go too far wrong with a title that intrigues. Another thought is
to look into some of the periodicals--I'm partial to Fine Woodworking,
having been a subscriber since almost the first issue, others have
different choices...