Did you read Sports Illustrated a couple of weeks ago? In the September 26 issue there was a big article about Yao Ming, which was actually an excerpt from Brook Larmer's forthcoming book called Operation Yao Ming.

Larmer is a former Newsweek bureau chief, and this is his first book. And make no mistake: This is serious, professional journalism. The research and reporting is absolutely relentless.

Consider this: Larmer's competition in telling the story of Yao Ming is, well, Yao Ming himself, who conspired with Ric Bucher to write a pretty good biography.

This book blows Yao's own book out of the water. Not even close.

Here are just some of the things I learned from the excerpt: