A book deal for Condi Rice

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is reported to have signed a $2.5-million, three-book deal with Crown Publishers, an imprint of Random House. The first book, scheduled for release in 2011, will be a memoir about her years working in the Bush administration.

The other two books, however, will be more personal. Rice is said to be planning a memoir about her family, which she will also adapt for a young-adult version. Both those books are scheduled for release in 2012.

Rice's personal story will tell of her childhood in Birmingham, Ala., where she was born in 1954, and attended a segregated school. The memoir will follow on through her adult years as she went on to become provost of Stanford University and then the first black woman to be secretary of state.

According to Crown, the memoir will examine Rice's "upbringing in the context of the extraordinary efforts made by her parents and other people in the community to raise children against a backdrop of fading Jim Crow laws and emergent civil rights initiatives."