Mike Filey’s "The Way We Were" column in the Toronto Sun continues to be one of the paper’s most popular features. In Toronto Sketches 5, the fifth volume in Dundurn Press’s Toronto Sketches series, Filey brings together some of the best of his columns from 1996 and 1997. Each column looks at Toronto as it was, and contributes to our understanding of how Toronto became what it is. Illustrated with photographs of the city’s people and places of the past, Toronto Sketches 5 is a nostalgic journey for the long-time Torontonian, and a voyage of discovery for the newcomer.

For decades Toronto historian Mike Filey has regaled readers with stories of the city’s past through its landmarks, neighbourhoods, streetscapes, social customs, pleasure palaces, politics, sporting events, celebrities, and defining moments. Now, in one lavishly illustrated volume, he serves up the best of his meditations on everything from the Royal York Hotel, the Flatiron Building, and the Necropolis to Massey Hall, the Palais Royale, and the Canadian National Exhibition, with streetcar jaunts through Cabbagetown, the Annex, Rosedale, and Little Italy and trips down memory lane with Mary Pickford, Glenn Miller, Bob Hope, and Ed Mirvish. Filey recounts in vivid detail the devastation of city disasters such as Hurricane Hazel and the Great Fire of 1904 and spins yarns about doughnut shops old and new, milk deliveries by horse, swimming at Lake Ontario’s beaches, Sunday blue laws, and how both World Wars affected Torontonians.

These are collections of Mike Fileys best work from his popular and long-running Toronto Sun column, "The Way We Were."

Mike Filey's "The Way We Were" column in the Toronto Sun continues to be one of the paper's most popular features. In Toronto Sketches Filey brings together some of the best of his columns. Each column looks at Toronto as it was, and contributes to our understanding of how Toronto became what it is. Illustrated with photographs of the city's people and places of the past, Toronto Sketches is a nostalgic journey for the long-time Torontonian, and a voyage of discovery for the newcomer.

This special collection gathers the volumes ten and eleven of the Toronto Sketches series, a fascinating compendium of Mike Filey's columns about the people and history of Toronto. These are essential reading for history buffs and for people who want to understand their city.

One of the most vibrant artists of her generation, Pegi Nicol MacLeod was a charismatic bohemian whose expressive images of the contemporary world were an essential component of Canadian modernism during the 1930s and 1940s. In Pegi by Herself, the first full-length biography of Nicol MacLeod, Laura Brandon draws on the artist's remarkable autobiographical paintings and extraordinarily vivid letters. Remembered as much for her colourful life, love affairs, and significant friendships with Vincent Massey, Norman Bethune, Frank Scott, and Graham Spry as for her artistic achievement, Nicol MacLeod exhibited successfully and received significant commissions from the National Gallery of Canada to paint the wartime women's services. She was honoured there with a memorial exhibition following her early death in 1949. Lavishly illustrated, Pegi by Herself accompanies Pegi Nicol MacLeod: A Life in Art, a touring retrospective exhibition of the artist's work that opens at the Carleton University Art Gallery in February 2005, and the premiere of an NFB film biography.

Unbuilt Toronto explores the failed architectural dreams of Toronto. Delving into unfulfilled & largely forgotten visions for grand public buildings, landmark skyscrapers, roads & highways, transit systems, & sports & recreation venues, the authors outline such ambitious but ultimately unrealised schemes as St. Alban's Cathedral, the "Newark 2011" subway system, & a 1911 city plan that would have resulted in a Paris-by-the-Lake. Readers will lament the loss of some projects (such as the planned construction boom for the Olympics), be thankful for the loss of others ("City Hall was supposed to look like that?!?"), & marvel at the downtown that could have been (with underground roads & walkways in the sky). With an eye on the future as well as the past, the author takes stock of Toronto's status quo in 2008 & offers some bold predictions on the city's architectural future.

The Toronto Neighbourhoods bundle presents a collection of titles that provide fascinating insight into the history and development of Canada’s largest and most diverse city. Beginning with histories of Canada’s longest street and the early days of what was once called York (The Yonge Street Story, 1793-1860; A City in the Making; Opportunity Road), the titles in the bundle go on to examine the development of particular unique neighbourhoods that help give the city its character (Willowdale, Leaside). Finally, Mark Osbaldeston’s acclaimed, award-winning Unbuilt Toronto and Unbuilt Toronto 2 go beyond history and into the arena of speculation as the author details ambitious and possibly city-changing plans that never came to fruition. For lovers of Toronto, this collection is a bonanza of insights and facts. Includes A City in the Making Leaside Opportunity Road Unbuilt Toronto Unbuilt Toronto 2 Willowdale The Yonge Street Story, 1793-1860