MY LOVE STORY Tina Turner Loot.co.za (R344) CENTURY

FOR her many fans, she is simply the best; she is Tina Turner. She has sold more than 200 million records and has garnered 12 Grammy Awards. Her new autobiography, My Love

Story, coincides with her 60th year in the industry.

From her early years in Nutbush, Tennessee, to her rise to fame alongside Ike Turner to her phenomenal success in the 1980s and beyond, Tina examines her personal history, from her darkest hours to her happiest moments and everything in between.

“There’s always been an emotion in my voice because it reached back to the life I was living. Where there were tears on stage, it wasn’t Hollywood, it was real.”

The Ike Turner years were horrible and traumatic, indescribably so. A lesser woman than Tina would not have survived.

But survive she did and forged a phenomenal solo career.

The parts of the book that deal with Tina’s performing career are told like it was and make for engrossing “showbiz” reading.

For me, Tina’s telling of the personal aspects of her post-Ike life are this autobiography’s real strength.

The reader learns of her long commitment to Buddhism and spirituality, her health challenges and her beautiful, life-enhancing and lifesaving marriage to Erwin Bach.

“I have finally accepted my past, I can even laugh about it every now and then.

“I can look back and understand why my karma was the way it was. Good came out of bad.

“Joy came out of pain. And I have never been so completely happy as I am today.”

One can hear Tina’s speaking voice throughout My Love Story, her autobiography comes across as authentic and personal and it is hugely enjoyable.

Tina is 79 this year and if anyone has earned a tranquil and satisfying present life, she has.