Thornton's (its site history) is no longer a brick-and-mortar bookshop since January 1, 2003. It has disappeared into the cybersphere (cyberia?). The building at 11, Broad Street now houses a cafe.
When I was last at Oxford in November 2001, Thornton's, a classic English secondhand and antiquarian bookshop in operation since 1835, was still thriving, apparently. I had not then realized that it had faced bankruptcy, and been sold by the Thornton family in 1983.
Thornton has nourished me intellectually, and exercised a decisive influence on my intellectual life. It deserves to be remembered with affection and gratitude.
Here appear occasional jottings of my random musings. Profound or jejune, they reveal the contours of my mental universe, with world history, intellectual history, civilizations, philosophy, religion, society, knowledge, and books as some major themes. Since May 2011, this blog has been exclusively focused on Singapore. All my other reflections are now posted in "Notes from Noosphere" (see link under "Miscellany" on the right margin).
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