Who is 易中天 ?

Thanks for the release of Firefox 2.0, now I change the way reading RSS feed from plug-in to google-reader. With this setting, I can just leave one tab opened with google-reader, and everytime there are new posts on-line I can read them in no time, without bothering to turn on the plug-in in the side bar. So, now I am reading a lot of messages which I used to ignore, like "暢銷書排行榜".

When I read today's "大陸10月份暢銷書排行榜", I notice someone called "易中天" wrote 6 out of 15 top ranked "non-fiction" books. So I wonder, "ho-sai-lei", who is this 易中天? (and of course you know my next step is "googling"....)

He seems to be an academic star in mainland in recent years. From sina-reading's intro:

易中天，现任厦门大学人文学院教授。他长期从事文学、美学、历史学等多学科和跨学科研究，央视《百家讲坛》“开坛论道”的学者，其主讲的“汉代人物风云”首播即获热评。

And of course some people doubt that he is not "serious" enough on research. Well, I do not want to make any comment since I do not know him much, but I kind of feel I'va paid too little attention to the mainland. It is pitty since we share very much common culture and language.

So, do you want to know more about 易中天 ? please click here.