It's here.
Buy it at:
Deciding to See: The View From Nathan's Bus is the follow-up to my award-winning first book, The Lines That Make Us, a Seattle bestseller and textbook (all about that one here). It's a collection of true stories from my night job driving Metro buses, focusing on the value of grief, connection, and hope as ways forward during our challenging times.
From the back cover:
This book is an antidote to cynicism. Vass weaves personal history—including his experience surviving 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, and being listed as missing and presumed dead—and stories from his two decades as a driver on Seattle’s most colorful bus routes into a moving argument for empathy. As a longtime bus driver, Vass treats even his most troublesome riders—the ones who stumble in drunk, scream at their kids, or try to climb out the windows—like friends, a radical approach to a job that can breed misanthropy.
–Erica C. Barnett, author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery
Replete with kindness, humility, gratitude, and wonder, Deciding to See delivers what only the greatest of memoir can: a polished, sparkling lens. Nathan Vass has written an essential guidebook on how to be human—how to live, and perhaps how to die. A true, pure, and instructive joy.
–Clayton Page Aldern, author of The Weight of Nature & Homelessness Is a Housing Problem
No one captures the beauty, wisdom, and humor to be found in the little things quite like Nathan Vass, who highlights how every connection, no matter how transient, can profoundly shape our paths and leave an indelible mark on our lives. An absolute delight, and a reminder that life’s most meaningful moments often emerge in the unlikeliest of places.
–Susanna Ryan, Seattle Walk Report
Can a Metro bus be a third place? If you’re riding with Nathan Vass, it surely is. With humor, grace, and a singular earnestness, Nathan artfully fosters an itinerant community while traversing the arterials of Seattle, built on the lost yet fundamental art of acknowledging a stranger. In a time when attitudes may seem increasingly unrecognizable, Nathan grounds us in what really matters–the dignity and beauty of all our people, and the power we have to truly see each other.
–Cynthia Brothers, Vanishing Seattle
- Elliott Bay Books (keep it local!)
- Third Place Books (yes, local!)
- Amazon (or anywhere books are sold!)
Deciding to See: The View From Nathan's Bus is the follow-up to my award-winning first book, The Lines That Make Us, a Seattle bestseller and textbook (all about that one here). It's a collection of true stories from my night job driving Metro buses, focusing on the value of grief, connection, and hope as ways forward during our challenging times.
From the back cover:
This book is an antidote to cynicism. Vass weaves personal history—including his experience surviving 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, and being listed as missing and presumed dead—and stories from his two decades as a driver on Seattle’s most colorful bus routes into a moving argument for empathy. As a longtime bus driver, Vass treats even his most troublesome riders—the ones who stumble in drunk, scream at their kids, or try to climb out the windows—like friends, a radical approach to a job that can breed misanthropy.
–Erica C. Barnett, author of Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery
Replete with kindness, humility, gratitude, and wonder, Deciding to See delivers what only the greatest of memoir can: a polished, sparkling lens. Nathan Vass has written an essential guidebook on how to be human—how to live, and perhaps how to die. A true, pure, and instructive joy.
–Clayton Page Aldern, author of The Weight of Nature & Homelessness Is a Housing Problem
No one captures the beauty, wisdom, and humor to be found in the little things quite like Nathan Vass, who highlights how every connection, no matter how transient, can profoundly shape our paths and leave an indelible mark on our lives. An absolute delight, and a reminder that life’s most meaningful moments often emerge in the unlikeliest of places.
–Susanna Ryan, Seattle Walk Report
Can a Metro bus be a third place? If you’re riding with Nathan Vass, it surely is. With humor, grace, and a singular earnestness, Nathan artfully fosters an itinerant community while traversing the arterials of Seattle, built on the lost yet fundamental art of acknowledging a stranger. In a time when attitudes may seem increasingly unrecognizable, Nathan grounds us in what really matters–the dignity and beauty of all our people, and the power we have to truly see each other.
–Cynthia Brothers, Vanishing Seattle
Stay tuned for updates!