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Best Parenting Classes

Parents' Mathematics Institute
Community College of Aurora

Show of hands: How many parents have had palpitations when a graphing calculator showed up on the seventh-grade back-to-school supply list? Was it just the cost, or was it also the fact that you had no earthly clue what a graphing calculator does or why anyone would need to know such a thing? The good news is that the folks at CCA realize there are major mathematical concepts that have been discovered since you left junior high. They've put together a two-week, mini-crash course, the Parents' Mathematics Institute, for moms and dads of kids in seventh grade and up that covers elementary math concepts, including writing, solving and graphing inequalities, estimating answers and beginning algebra. The bad news is that the course, complete with an introduction to that pesky graphing calculator and separate workshops for kids, took place earlier this month.

Best Comic-Book Store

Mile High Comics Megastore

With gallons and gallons of ink depicting the never-ending power struggle between spandex-clad goodie-goodies and animal-themed criminals, Mile High Comics Megastore in Thornton is the largest comics shop in the country, and the flagship of five metro locations. Mile High Comics president Chuck Rozanski started the company in 1969 and built it into the Superman of the comics retail/mail-order industry. With shelves of new comics, bins of back issues, toys and action figures from every possible merchandising deal, posters, games and other collectibles on its 11,000-square-foot floor, this place tempts young and old to travel great distances to unleash their inner Clark Kent.

Best Collection of the Golden Age of American Illustration

Fahrenheit's Books

Let the DAM be damned! The finest art in town may just hang inside the front door of Fahrenheit's Books. This great, if somewhat cramped, bibliophile's paradise is filled to the rafters (and then some) with bookish bounty, but the real treat is the collection of paperback pulp novels of the '50s and '60s that heralded the golden age of American illustration. Their intimate, front-of-the-store setting is perfect for displaying the eye-popping covers of torrid scenarios in the most lurid colors. The drapery of a single femme fatale's peasant blouse over her heaving bosom is sexier than all the porn at Kitty's South. Each cover is a beautiful little jewel of a thing, but en masse the effect makes Fahrenheit's Books the finest illustration art gallery in the city.

Best Alternative to the Terminal Annex

The Tattered Cover, LoDo

When the Terminal Annex on Wynkoop Street closed, oodles of lower-downtowners lost a convenient place to complete their postal chores. So here's to the LoDo branch of the Tattered Cover opening a shipping center to keep area residents from having to wait in already long postal lines throughout the city. As a bonus, the atmosphere inside the bookstore is infinitely more pleasant than the Annex's ever was.

Best Bookstore for the Dark and Brooding

Black and Read Bookstore

Underground movie rentals, creepy comics, horror paperbacks, obscure punk bands on vinyl: If it's spooky or subversive books and music you're after, you'll find it at Black and Read Bookstore. Never again must you search in vain -- or pay too much -- for avant-garde German synth-pop on CD or hard-to-find '80s death metal. New or used, Black and Read's enthusiastic, ill-groomed, goateed staff is happy to turn you on to obscure tomes or tunes. And in case you're stuck in Arvada with a pressing need for a new eyebrow stud, you'll always find one in their selection of jewelry and accessories.

Best Bookstore for Patrons of Color

The Hue-Man Experience

Hue-Man Experience carries books, music, gifts and more, catering specifically to the often-overlooked African-American consumer. Since purchasing the store from its original founder eight months ago, new owners Joi Afzal, Kim Martin and Daryl Walker proudly offer more than 6,200 titles in their homey downtown space, along with Afro-centric wedding invitations, a children's corner, gift certificates and unique home and gift items. For sixteen years, Hue-Man has served as the local black community's leading source for fiction, relationship tips, health advice, African history, art and photography. If you're into literature and media with flavor, check out the Hue-Man Experience.

Best Store to Buy Books Condemning Consumerism

Breakdown Book Collective and Community Space

If you like your media saturation on a more manageable, not to mention liberal, scale, Breakdown Book Collective and Community Space is the place. After troubles at its former Platte Street location, the bookstore moved into the burgeoning Ogden arts district, and the place is again stocked with hundreds of titles on anarchy, pacifism, gender, race, sexuality and, of course, some ol' fashioned socialism. They also offer art, workshops, free classes and even the occasional basement show spotlighting everything from noise bands to hip-hop DJs. Just don't sign any lists. You never know where the FBI lurks.

Best Place to Dispose of Old Magazines

Safeway

The charity magazine table at the 6th and Corona Safeway is like manna from heaven for the magaphile. There's this month's Vogue and last month's Atlantic Monthly. There's Best Friends, the Utah sanctuary's quarterly glossy, and piles of old New Yorkers. And for just a quarter each, they're a bargain. The money is donated to local nonprofits such as Race for the Cure, so it's worth the dig through the niche shlock. Watch the table carefully in the third week of the month -- that's when most of the current lad mags and fashion bibles hit the table. And, hey, when you're done, drop it off again.

Best Used Books All the Time

Koelbel Public Library

Every day is a book fair at the Arapahoe County Library's Koebel branch. Since Valentine's Day, a group of dedicated volunteers has been manning the used-book store inside the library's espresso bar. They sort the donated books, which are priced by an expert once a month, then sell them during regular library hours. Proceeds go to literacy programs.

Best Place to Stick a Book in Your Ear

Reel Books Audio Bookstore

New owner, new location, more space and more titles on tape and CD for rent and sale. Owner Benjamin Anzman has introduced new membership deals ranging from weekly to annual unlimited rentals, starting at less than $10 a month. The bestseller and new-books list at Reel Books is updated weekly. So even if you don't have time to flip pages, insert tape.

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