Frank Touby: 3 books

Before the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico all earth was threatened by the oil disaster in the Persian Gulf — over 700 oil wells were set on fire by Saddam Hussein. It was predicted it would take decades to extinguish them.This is the true story of the heroic men who set a world record in killing those wild wells in just five months and saved the earth from toxic fallout

Children were hanged, women without husbands had little choice but to prostitute themselves, clergy and ruling families cruelly dominated a lusty, oftentimes unruly population. The seamy and the sacred united to form one of the world’s great cities: Toronto. Telling its tales is famed local historian Bruce Bell, a uniquely skilled and deeply emotional storyteller.

Master Storyteller Bruce Bell captures the glories and downfalls, tragedies and comedies, as a bawdy city carved by slaves, freemen and women from thick hardwood forest on Lake Ontario emerges to become the most multicultural city on earth. This first in a series of 5 History of Toronto books is inspired by his acclaimed columns in The Bulletin, Toronto's famed Downtown community newspaper.