Book description
The long journey of an American song, passed down from generation to generation, bridging a nation’s fraught disconnect between history and warped illusion, revealing the country's ever evolving self.
MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME, from its enormous success in the early 1850s, written by a white man, considered the father of…
Why read it?
1 author picked My Old Kentucky Home as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
It is a ritual in Kentucky to sing “My Old Kentucky Home” every year at the Kentucky Derby. I just never knew how fraught and controversial that seemingly harmless ritual was before reading this book.
Bingham traces the song back through its genesis in Stephen Foster’s pen, its career as a staple of blackface minstrelsy, the campaign of balderdash and hoopla that led to the “My Old Kentucky Home” state park, and the racial controversies that have surrounded the song since the 1920s.
Amid all these controversies, white people have routinely insisted that it’s “just a song”; by uncovering its…
If you love My Old Kentucky Home...
December on 5C4
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Want books like My Old Kentucky Home?
Our community of 13,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like My Old Kentucky Home.
Share your top 3 reads of 2026!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
190
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like My Old Kentucky Home, you might also like...
Broken Boots, Redeemed Soul: A Veteran’s War with Sin and Salvation
Broken Boots, Redeemed Soul: A Veteran’s War with Sin and Salvation, is a raw and faith-centered memoir about life after military service—and the internal battles many never see. Brian Lofton shares his journey through addiction, shame, identity loss, and spiritual distance, revealing how the hardest struggles often begin after…
No Color Is My Kind
No Color is My Kind tells the stories of the desegregation of Houston, TX, in 1960, the life of civil rights leader Eldrewey Stearns, and the author's relationship to Stearns.
They met in a psychiatric case conference while Stearns was hospitalized at the University of Texas Medical Branch. After his…
