L AST YEAR’S BEST

This year’s Best American anthologies are just about ready for the bookstores – but maybe we should say last year’s. Looking into a copy of Houghton Mifflin’s “The Best American Essays 2004,” edited by Louis Menand and slated to hit stores in October, might not a reader be surprised to see Adam Gopnik’s “The Unreal Thing” about the movie “The Matrix,” from a May 2003 New Yorker? Or Anne Fadiman’s “The Arctic Hedonist,” about explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, from the January 2003 American Scholar – a nearly year-and-a-half-old piece from a magazine Ms. Fadiman no longer edits?

This is not new. Houghton Mifflin launched its Best American Short Stories in 1915, and it and every other publishing house that has started a new series stick to the same marketing cycle, placing pieces published in the previous calendar year in volumes with the current year on the cover. It’s simply a matter of publishing realities. “It’s a publishing schedule,” vice president of adult books at Houghton Mifflin, Janet Silver, explained. “The final selection is made in early 2004 so that the selection includes everything from 2003.”

Houghton Mifflin has seven titles in its Best American Series, including “Best American Short Stories” and “Best American Essays.” Through imprints such as Ecco and Perennial, Harper Collins competes for readers in search of only the best, publishing “The Best American Science Writing” (Ecco), “The Best American Magazine Writing” (Perennial), and “The Best Spiritual Writing” (HarperSanFrancisco).

Otto Penzler (who writes the Crime Scene column for the New York Sun) is series editor of two annual Best Americans. For eight years he has edited “The Best American Mystery Stories” for Houghton Mifflin. For three, he has edited “The Best American Crime Writing,” published by Pantheon (Mr. Penzler tells us that Ecco will take over publication of the title starting next year).

Mr. Penzler pointed out that if the 2004 collections came out in the spring “everyone would look at it and think, ‘this is last year’s book.'” Uniquely, Pantheon calls the next volume in its series the “2004 edition” – a nice solution.

What remains a question is why, in an age when W.W. Norton was able to publish the 9/11 Commission’s report almost instantaneously, anyone should have to wait until October 2004 for the best essays of 2003. But the manager of St. Mark’s Bookshop, Michael Russo, doesn’t think it matters.

“I don’t think it’s troubling to anyone, and it certainly isn’t troubling to me,” said Mr. Russo. “We do a very good business in the series.”

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NOTES

The Manhattan Borough Board approved the sale of Two Columbus Circle to the Museum of Arts and Design, which plans to transform the site into a cultural, educational, and civic center. Architect Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture will design the new building. … The Tribeca Film Festival has expanded its dates for the Fourth Annual event by adding two evenings. From April 21 to May 1, 2005, cinephiles will descend on Lower Manhattan once again. Submissions are currently being accepted.