MY IDEA OF THE PERFECT "home entertainment centre" is a bookshelf, rather than a wall unit stocked with sound and video equipment. I have yet to interface with Sonic the Hedgehog and I feel disoriented in HMV superstores, so when a friend phoned recently to ask if I'd go along to BookStore: The Total Experience, a shop that's just opened in a trendy commercial area of downtown Toronto, I was noncommittal at first. But it was a dreary winter morning, I was keen on checking out the latest in gender theory, and the store had been getting lots of press for "revolutionizing the retail experience." So, I decided, why not'?

For me, the "experience" of a bookstore has always boiled down to practical, if unimaginative, considerations. Does it stock the kind of titles that interest me? Are the aisles wide enough to allow customers to pass one another without feeling like they're on a packed subway car? I now realize, though, that shopping for books can be much more than simply scanning the shelves and leafing through the various volumes that catch your eye. It can be, instead, a Total Experience.

Our Total Experience began in the atrium of the BookStore, where my friend and I were met by a teenager wearing an Official Greeter's calibrated smile and a button saying I'm Totally Interactive. He handed us a map, with each department -- they were called "modules" -- in a different colour. Each colour was given a name, to distinguish between different shades. And staff uniforms in each module matched the map, the greeter pointed out, making it easy to find your way around.

Alice and I planned a roundabout route to Gender (interstellar blue); but first we had to make it through the crowd milling around in front of the SpecEvents Bureau (scintillating oyster), where you could sign up for membership services, including lifestyle/writing workshops. A pixel board showed that three courses -- Introductory Poetry and Low- Impact Aerobics, Short Fiction and Gourmet Vegetarian Cooking, and Life Writing and Shiatsu -- were sold out and had closed their waiting lists.

We decided to have a quick coffee at Tropes, the cafe (Renaissance gold), before the lunchtime rush. Already most of the tables in the front section were taken, and the bakery was down to only 10 varieties of bagel. Alice chose the Bovary Brew ("slightly bitter, but a rich, pleasingly complex blend of traditional flavours") and I had the Jabberwocky Mocha Java ("a great wake-up flavour, full-bodied and a touch exotic"). We studied the map.

"Oh, damn," Alice said. "I meant to bring my laundry."

"Your laundry?"

She pointed to a tiny (moonglow grey) module tucked in off the main concourse. "Oh well, maybe next week. Just remind me, will you, to pick up a bottle of balsamic vinegar when we pass the Flavours section on the way out."

I was beginning to lose my desultory browser's disposition and to feel purposeful about reaching Gender. It was, according to the map, a bit smaller than Gardening (rainforest glade) but bigger than the scuff mark (Navaho brown) of Shoe Repairs. A daunting zone of harmony red sprawled between us and the blue modules of various hues. "Health and fitness?"

"Oh, yes, that's a huge section, lots of submodules," Alice said. "We might want to avoid the middle part of it entirely, there are always so many people wanting to get in to Weight Training and Stationary Bikes. We'd be better off slipping through Piercing -- it's usually pretty quiet."

We ran into a bit of a jam at Massage Therapy, but managed to make it to Gender in under 10 minutes. (I was tempted to detour at Billiards, but there weren't any tables free, and the room was smoky.) The sole person in Gender was a sales associate who, although Totally Interactive in interstellar blue, had to stifle a yawn when I approached. "Awfully quiet," I said, paying for my paperback edition of the most recent Teresa de Lauretis.

"Yes," she agreed. "Though once in a while we hear yells from Roughing It in the Bush, just down the concourse. It's the new virtual survival game, very popular. They're taking bookings for next weekend if you're interested."

I said we'd think about it. Alice and I made our way back through the concourse of saturated colours and blaring video screens, stopping to buy balsamic vinegar and, in the wine boutique just inside the main entrance, a bottle of Chardonnay.

"There's only one thing that bothers me," I said. "No one else seems to be buying books. How will this bookstore ever survive?"

"But that's just the point," Alice said. "You can't just sell books. People want a broader range of the entertainment continuum. It's the 500-channel universe, only in a store."

I said nothing. For fear of being called totally Jurassic, I didn't want to admit that I don't even have a television. Or for that matter, the space for one -- the shelves of my home entertainment centre are full, and as fully interactive as I want.

Barbara Carey's most recent book is The Ground of Events (Mercury).