Adventures of a "Gringo" Researcher in Brazil in the 1960s or In Search of Cordel is an entertaining and informative account of Professor Curran's first foray in Brazil. In this book he tells two stories: the research to collect cordel and, perhaps more importantly, the travel and the adventures of the year in Brazil. The two are inseparable and complement each other. Chapters include Recife and the Northeast, Travels to the interior of the Northeast, research in Brazil's colonial capital of Salvador da Bahia, research and tourism in Rio de Janeiro, trips to the interior of Rio, including Ouro Preto, Congonhas do Campo, and a memorable trip on a wood-burning stern wheeler on the Sao Francisco River in Minas Gerais and Bahia, and finally, research in the Amazon Basin, including both Belem do Para and Manaus. The account is not in academic language but in a colloquial, conversational style. Curran writes as one sitting down with the reader and telling tales of his travels, and perhaps with the author and reader enjoying a caipirinha, or a Brazilian draft beer choppe as they talk.

Diary of a North American Researcher in Brazil III is the last in the series Stories I Told My Students. It is the continuation of the authors love affair and odyssey in Brazil, this time from 1988 to 2005. The volume brings to the present moments lived in Brazil and is written much more in the framework of a travel diary in Brazil. Short vignettes about people and places flavor the book. There is emphasis on academic conferences with many Brazilian Stories, the publication of works in Brazil, and more important, times shared with cordel poets, professors and researchers of Brazilian literature, folklore and popular literature in verse. Something new in this final phase of research, writing and professional life was the time spent in the city of So Paulo, at first glance an unlikely place for a student of folklore. A special moment was the participation in a unique event: 100 Years of Cordel sponsored by the SESC-POMPEIA in 2001 in that city. Others were with cordel poets and poet-singers in the Northeastern Cultural Center in So Paulo, and with Srgio Miceli of the University of So Paulo Press and Plnio Martins of Ateli Press, dealing with the publication of Currans final research efforts in Brazil. And lastly the book recalls fondly the time spent with friends who were with me in moments of happiness but also of solitude and some loneliness. I dedicate the book to all of them: cordel poets, researchers, professors, writers, friends, and to the person who sustained me most, my wife Keah.

It Happened in Brazil: Chronicle of a North American Researcher in Brazil II is the English version of Aconteceu no Brasil: Crnica de um Pesquisador Norte - Americano II. The book is a continuation of the first volume in the series published in 2012 in both Portuguese and English: Adventures of a Gringo Researcher in Brazil in the 1960s. It continues Currans love affair with Brazil and the Brazilians and work in Brazil from 1969 to 1985; a third volume to be published in coming years will bring everything to the present. This volume deals with various researches and travel trips to Brazil, the author now professor at Arizona State University. Themes will be continued research on the Literatura de Cordel, conferences, important moments with authors of cordel and Brazilian Literature, the odyssey of publishing in Brazil, journeys to new parts of Brazil, and fine moments of tourism with wife, Keah. Among academic moments and high points will be 1973 and the First International Congress on Portuguese and Brazilian Philology in Rio de Janeiro where the author is introduced to the Luso-Brazilian Academic World and especially in 1981 when Curran took part in the 50 Years of Literature of Jorge Amado Commemoration in Salvador da Bahia. Among other memorable moments over the years was the trip with wife Keah to Brazil in 1985. The occasion was to receive a literary prize combined with new tourism to various parts of the country. Written in the spirit and style of the genre of short chronicles in Brazil, the book will comment as well on the political, economic and social scene over the years and will note the many changes in the dynamic Brazil of the late twentieth century.

This book is entitled Travel, Research, and Teaching in Guatemala and Mexico: In Search of the Pre-Columbian Heritage (volume II, Mexico). This book in its totality of two volumes has various facets: it is comprised of anecdotes and thoughts on travel, research, and teaching in Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico from 1962 to 2000; it is a reflection on important topics and concepts of pre-Columbian culture, and finally, it is a summary of classroom guidelines and Professor Curran's notes on a major work on the civilizations of pre-Columbian Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico and important documentary films on the same. Volume II treats Mexico. An introduction and overview of the sites in Mexico is seen in text and photos from the Museo de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City, the best of its kind. Again, volume II treats modern urban cities and rural towns near the pre-Columbian sites: Mexico City, Oaxaca, San Cristóbal de las Casas, and Mérida in the Yucatán. The well-known pre-Columbian sites in volume II are Teotihuacán, Monte Albán, Mitla, Palenque, Uxmal, Chichén-Itzá, and Tulum. The book is richly illustrated with black-and-white travel photos by Curran.

This book is a photographic journey of fifty years of research on Brazil and its folk-popular poetry, the literatura de cordel. The photos taken by the author over these fifty years are divided into three parts: 1. The poets and the printers of cordel 2.The intellectuals, informants and friends associated with the research and 3. The fairs, markets and scenes of folklore related to the research. Each photo, when applicable, is followed by a description of the scene or person. This archive includes many persons and scenes that are no longer present in Brazil thus documenting the reality of those times. The book is a companion book to the complete story of the story-poems and their authors seen in his recent Portrait of Brazil in the Twentieth Century - the Universe of the Literatura de Cordel.

"ADVENTURE TRAVEL" - A NEW PARTNERSHIP The Royal Princess is a return to the author's "Adventure Travel" series, now the 6th. It is based on real travel but made fiction. Professor Mike Gaherty and Assistant Expedition Leader Amy Carrier, long time friends and collegues and some time lovers, reconnect in a new venture for AT - a Partnership with Princess Lines. AT in effect will add to the passenger list of an itinerary already planned by Princess for Fall, 1989. "The Mediterranean - A Voyage into History" is ambitious with stops in ten destinations. The author has chosen to follow the Greek and Roman Classic Epics in his plan for the book - 10 Chapters or "Cantos." 1. Rome 2. Venice 3. Dubrovnik 4. Crete and Heraklion 5. Ephesus 6. Istanbul 7. Yalta and Odessa 8. The Bosporos and on Board the Royal Princess 9. The Greek Cyclades - Delos and Mykonos 10. Anthens and Sounion. The book aims to inform and entertain, in effect, to introduce the reader to the basics of history and culture of a significant part of Western Civilization and have fun at the same time.

"ADVENTURE TRAVEL" IN COLOMBIA - MOMENTS OF MAYHEM Or, Colombia Revisited is a return to the author's travel and research in Colombia years ago, but now revised and made into "historical and cultural fiction." Professor Michael Gaherty and "Adventure Travel" Assistant Expedition Leader Amy Carrier travel to Colombia to research and scope out the country for a possible Expedition Trip by the Company. They experience wonderful travel moments, some moments of mayhem, and scary, dangerous surprises while on the journey. Medellín, Santa Fé de Antioquia, Bogotá, Cali, Popayán, Silvia, Tunja, Places of Interest in Boyacá State including Villa de Leiva, and finally, Cartagena de Índias and Colombia's "Microcosm of the Caribbean", Isla San Andrés round out the itinerary.