Hoopla is a free digital media platform that works through your local public library. If you have a library card, you can download the Hoopla app and instantly borrow audiobooks, eBooks, comics, movies, TV shows, and even music — without late fees, without waiting lists in many cases, and without spending money.

I’ve linked to Amazon simply for reference. Most are available Free from the Library or youtube

The Power of Now is a guide to stepping out of mental noise and into present-moment awareness. Tolle explains that much of our suffering comes from living in the past or worrying about the future, and that peace becomes accessible when we anchor ourselves in the Now.

For readers (or listeners) — especially those healing from trauma or brain injury — the book offers a simple but profound shift: you are not your racing thoughts, your fear, or your symptoms. There is a deeper awareness beneath them. By gently observing the mind instead of being consumed by it, you create space, calm, and clarity.

I Highly recommend the Audio version. His tone and chimes are very calming

101 Ways to Think Positive
The latest Chicken Soup book written by Amy Newmark features a story by Celeste Palmer! Everyone can benefit from a little more positive thinking. Your attitude is a powerful tool that can help you react to the ups and downs of life and even change what happens next.

In order to come to your senses, Alan Watts often said, you sometimes need to go out of your mind. Perhaps more than any other teacher in the West, this celebrated author, former Anglican priest, and self-described spiritual entertainer was responsible for igniting the passion of countless wisdom seekers to the spiritual and philosophical delights of Asia and India

From Concussions, mTBi to traumatic brain injury, this book is the best guide in learning about TBI scientifically and practically, so you are ready to take the right action at the right time to limit the damage and overcome challenges that come with it, both as a caregiver and as the patient.

The searing, wry memoir about a woman’s fight for a new life after a devastating brain injury.‍ ‍When PhD candidate Sarah Vallance is thrown from a horse and suffers a jarring blow to the head, she believes she walks away unscathed. The next morning, things take a sharp turn as she’s quickly led from work to the emergency room. By the end of the week, a neurologist delivers a devastating prognosis: Sarah suffered a traumatic brain injury that has caused her IQ to plummet, with no hope of recovery. Her brain has irrevocably changed.

've spent quite a bit of time with Brain Energy, and it has given me plenty to think about. Dr. Palmer, a Harvard psychiatrist, explores the relationship between metabolism, mitochondria, and mental health. His central argument is that disruptions in how the brain produces and uses energy may help explain some conditions we traditionally treat as entirely separate diagnoses.

What caught my attention wasn't necessarily the psychiatric framework, but the larger question of energy itself. After a brain injury, you can feel perfectly capable one moment and completely depleted the next, sometimes without doing anything that would appear particularly demanding to someone else. That experience has been central to my own thinking about what I call the Fluctuating Energy Economy of Brain Injury.

This book doesn't prove that theory, nor is it specifically a guide to TBI treatment. But it provides an interesting scientific perspective on why energy production, energy demand, and brain function deserve more attention.

When Sight Heals the Brain - Vision is something many of us take for granted until our brain stops processing the world quite the way it used to. After a brain injury, visual problems can extend far beyond whether you need glasses. Reading, tracking movement, navigating busy environments, and even tolerating certain patterns or lighting conditions can become exhausting.

Dr. Ingryd Lorenzana approaches the subject from two perspectives: as a neuro-optometrist and as someone who has lived with the effects of a brain injury herself. Her book explores the relationship between visual processing, neurological function, and rehabilitation while sharing the experiences that shaped her professional understanding.

This title recently came up in our TBIBridge community discussions, and I think it's particularly relevant to anyone struggling with visual symptoms that aren't necessarily reflected in a routine eye examination.

My Stroke of Insight - Imagine spending your professional life studying the brain, only to suddenly experience a neurological injury that changes how your own brain functions. That's the extraordinary perspective Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor brings to My Stroke of Insight.

As a neuroscientist who experienced a major stroke, she describes losing abilities that most of us never consciously think about, including language, memory, and ordinary ways of interpreting the world. Her recovery became both a personal journey and an opportunity to observe neurological change from an unusual perspective.

A stroke is not the same as a traumatic brain injury, but many of the questions about identity, adaptation, communication, and recovery will feel familiar to brain injury survivors and their families. I especially appreciate books that help bridge the gap between what medicine can measure and what the person actually experiences.

In Whole Brain Living, Dr. Taylor takes a different approach, exploring how our thoughts and emotions influence our experiences and behavior. She introduces a framework of four brain-based characters, offering a way to recognize different emotional and thinking patterns.

What interests me here is the relationship between the brain and our reactions. After an injury, emotions don't always behave the way they once did. Frustration can arrive unexpectedly, patience can disappear, and sometimes the hardest part isn't the original challenge but how strongly we react to it.

This book offers a framework for developing greater awareness of those patterns. It's not a clinical rehabilitation manual, but it may provide useful ideas for anyone interested in emotional regulation, self-awareness, and the ongoing process of adapting to change.

I've developed a real appreciation for Eckhart Tolle's approach to quieting the constant activity of the mind. His writing isn't about brain injury specifically, but some of the ideas have been surprisingly relevant to my experience.

Stillness Speaks is particularly approachable because it doesn't demand that you sit down and work through lengthy chapters. It's a collection of shorter reflections that you can read a little at a time, put down, and revisit whenever the mood strikes.

For those of us dealing with cognitive fatigue, that matters. Sometimes even something we enjoy can become mentally demanding, and the last thing we need is another activity that feels like an assignment. Also I HIGHLY reccomend the Audio versions of Ekhat Tolles works. his narraration alone is soothing and relaxing

Brain injury can change far more than our physical or cognitive abilities. It can challenge the very identity we've spent a lifetime building. Careers, routines, relationships, expectations, and our own understanding of who we are can all become part of that adjustment.

In A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle explores the stories we create about ourselves and the ways we become attached to those identities. It's a philosophical and spiritual work rather than a scientific explanation of neurological injury, but the questions it raises are worth considering.

For me, the connection is straightforward: if so much of what we once associated with our identity changes after an injury, what remains? And how do we make peace with becoming someone different without believing we've become someone less?