I am not entirely sure what you are asking for. My suggestion that follows is not a "handbook."
I got thrown into steel design after never touching it since school. I bought the following book off of Amazon:
"Build With Steel: A Companion to the AISC Manual" - Paul W. Richards
ISBN: 1470098202
It is a great refresher book, with nice illustrations.
It was essentially a review of my 1st semester steel design course notes, I probably could have saved the money and just reviewed those.
I used this book as a refresher, since I had a formal education in steel design. I can not comment on the ability to self-learn from this book.
I am glad I got the book, it made me much more competent the next week at work.
I worked through the entire book in a couple of evenings (again, it was a refresher).
After my initial read of it, I have never referenced it. Everything can be found in the AISC manual, but sometimes it is easier to parse through AISC's jumbles of text when you already know the topic.
The book is very basic (like I said, it was a review of my first semester steel course), and it left me wanting more on many occasions.
I believe this book is entirely LRFD, but I could be mistaken. Regardless, it is the same steel theory for ASD and LRFD.
