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"Many years after the death of her grandmother Elisabeth, Lulah Ellender inherited a curious object - a book of handwritten lists. They seemed rather ordinary - shopping lists, items to be packed for a foreign trip, a tally of the eggs laid by Elisabeth's hens. But from these everyday fragments, Lulah began to weave together the extraordinary life of the grandmother she never knew - a life lived in the most rarefied and glamorous of circles, from Elisabeth's early years as an ambassador's daughter in 1930s China, to her marriage to a British diplomat and postings in civil-war Madrid, Beirut, Rio de Janiero and Paris. But it was also a life of stark contrasts -- between the necessity unfailing public charm and private deep depressions -- and in these moments of darkness and chaos, it was the act of making lists that gave Elisabeth some kind of comfort and structure. And now, as Lulah prepares to say goodbye to her own mother, she looks to grandmother's life, and to her much-travelled book of lists, to find the same solace."--

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