In the era of the celebrity blog, there’s something slightly anachronistic about the dead-tree tell-all: After all, why would a fan pay to read his idol’s carefully presented thoughts when Courtney Love’s flying her freak flag for free on MySpace?

Eminem (with the help of writer Sacha Jenkins) addresses the imminent death of the superstar memoir in his new The Way I Am (Dutton, $40) by offering an experience far more immersive than your typical autobio; here he complements candid first-person reflections—“The worst part about the way I grew up was that I never had a real home”—with a treasure trove of photographs, drawings, hand-scrawled lyric sheets, even a handgun license issued by the Michigan State Police. Props to Em for including an old strip-club snapshot in which he doesn’t bother to conceal his openmouthed enthusiasm.

You get nothing so revealing in Prince’s 21 Nights (Atria, $50), a lush volume of photos by Randee St. Nicholas documenting the Purple One’s 2007 stand at London’s O2 arena; moody images of Prince as an elfin badass dominate the book (which comes packaged with a CD of slinky live jams). But like The Way I Am, it has a usefulness appropriate for the Internet age: This thing would take almost 21 nights to download.