In some ways, Mr. Mysak is an unlikely bookish hero  he was disbarred as a lawyer in New Jersey and was convicted of pilfering money from clients. But as he peers through his Coke-bottle glasses and alternately puffs and chomps on a stumpy cigar, he speaks in paragraphs and elliptical sentences that betray his voracious reading habits. (He returns to his favorites  H. L. Mencken and Raymond Chandler  several times each year.)

“There are days when 15 or 20 people pass by and might not even notice I’m here,” he said, as several pedestrians seemed to do just that. “A decade ago, if you saw someone covering their ear and talking to themselves, you would have thought they were just nuts. Today that’s the norm. It’s as if they are totally consumed by their own world and have no room for the outside. It is complete immersion in self to the exclusion of all else. That has to have an impact on the rest of our lives.”

So he does not see the downfall of Barnes & Noble  where he occasionally goes to warm up and use the restroom  or the decline of his own sales as some kind of business failing. It is, he laments, a reflection of society. The nearby Apple store, he notes, has no problem attracting customers, who walk out with slick white bags holding small devices with large price tags.

“People walk out of there as if they are in ecstasy,” he said.

He points to a row of books that include editions by Aldous Huxley, E. B. White and Ansel Adams. A decade ago, he said, those books would not have stayed on his table for more than a few hours. Now, they have been there for more than a month. “Largely ignored,” he said sadly.

“It is apparent that we have a real serious issue, that the life of the mind has been in decline for some time now,” he said. He dismissed concerns about health care as he began smoking another cigar. “Ignorance and indolence is the primary problem. If you take care of the mind, everything else follows.”