New York State

The Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Empire Falls says his characters are inspired by his parents' working-class World War II generation. Russo's new novel is set in a small town in upstate New York.

Donna Tartt is a writer who takes her time — she's published just one novel per decade since her debut in 1992. But critic Maureen Corrigan says she'd gladly wait another 10 years for a book as extraordinary as Tartt's latest work, The Goldfinch, an "exuberantly plotted triumph."

Shalom Auslander's Hope: A Tragedy takes on genocide, identity politics and Anne frank (now elderly and squatting in a farmhouse in upstate New York) with grim humor and daring irreverence.

Ang Lee's film focuses not on the 1969 music festival itself, but on one of the people whose lives were changed by it: Elliot Teichberg, a closeted gay man who offered up his parents' decrepit motel as a home base for the festival's producers. David Edelstein reviews.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews Lorrie Moore's new novel, "Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?"

Maureen Corrigan reviews the New Amsterdam-based crime novel "The Dutchman," by Martin and Annette Myers, who write together under the name "Maan Myers."

Russo's latest book, The Risk Pool, is set in an upstate New York town, similar to where the author grew up. He says he didn't realize until later in his career how much inspiration he could draw from his formative years.