Headphones stay on at this L.A. meetup

Fleuria Audiobook Walking Club invites romance readers to bond at the beach.

- BY MADELEINE CONNORS

READERS, wearing headphones and carrying current reads, make their way down the Esplanade on Sept. 21. Photographs by Carlin Stiehl Los Angeles Times

It’s a cloudy, gray morning in Hermosa Beach. Surfers stare out toward the pale, sparkling horizon. Pearly clouds gather over the ocean in the distance, a view that evokes the moody landscapes of Virginia Woolf's novels.

A few blocks inland, the vibes are less pensive, more effusive at the Fleuria— Los Angeles’ first romance book truck. Crowded around the mobile bookstore, Alaina Lester is proclaiming her passion for romance novels to fellow book enthusiasts. She's praising “Love And Other Conspiracies” by Mallory Marlowe. Her sales pitch hinges on the heartthrob protagonist: “He's like a hot conspiracy theorist. If there even is such a thing.”

This Sunday morning, a group of book lovers — almost 90 of them — assembled in a parking lot for the Fleuria Audiobook Walking Club, a monthly event organized by owner Stephanie Pao. The event is akin to a silent disco for readers. Audiobook enthusiasts convene for coffee and conversation before walking alongside the beach, listening to their audiobooks, and sharing endorsements as they go. They don’t all read the same books, but it doesn’t matter.

Suddenly, the clouds thin. After an hour-long silent beachside walk, the crowd peels off their noise-canceling headphones and breaks into lively chatter. Sweatshirts and hats display slogans like “Hot Girls Read” and “Banned Books Lover.” One attendee, Kaley Robinson, was listening to “The Briar Club” by Kate Quinn. She describes it as “about McCarthyism and the Red Scare. It's a little bit of a murder mystery too.”

OUTSIDE Roundtrip Collective in Redondo Beach, people browse Fleuria's books.