We are a small, family-run business here at LinenMe, and when one of our team has a success we like to celebrate it. Which is why we are offering 5 lucky readers the chance to win a copy of our colleague Lulah Ellender's new book, Elisabeth's Lists: A family story. Lulah has been working on this book for the last two years and raising her four children alongside. Her book tells the story of her long-lost grandmother Elisabeth's life through a book of lists she left behind.
Elisabeth's Lists is a beautifully produced book, designed to look like a family photo album or vintage notebook, and would make the perfect gift for Mother's Day. So, if your mother, or someone you know, is a list-maker or interested in the everyday lives of people during the most extraordinary time in history, join our giveaway for a chance to win a copy.
To be in with a chance to win a book all you need to do is leave us a comment, along with a special memory or wish connected to your mother before 11th of March. On 11th of March we will select five at random and a stunning copy of Elisabeth's Lists will be winging its way to you.
Elisabeth was a diplomat's daughter whose childhood was spent constantly on the move, living in Persia (now Iran), Belgium, Latvia and China. She married a dashing young diplomat named Gerry in 1939 and continued this nomadic life in the Foreign Office. Elisabeth died of cancer when Lulah's mother was only nine years old. Her story had been passed down in fragments and family legends: Elisabeth being shot in the head by Chinese bandits and Gerry gouging out the bullet with his door-key, chases down mountain passes to escape secret police, glamorous cocktail parties and dances at Buckingham Palace, Elisabeth's struggles with depression. When Lulah's mother gave her a hardback journal that had belonged to Elisabeth Lulah suddenly wanted to weave these stories together. Like family heirlooms, precious linens that have been passed down through generations, recipes and family rituals, the book of lists became Lulah's connection to her grandmother.
The journal was full of handwritten lists, spanning Elisabeth's life between 1939-1957. It had traveled with Elisabeth to civil war-torn Madrid, wartime England, the dusty hills of Lebanon, the humid mangrove swamps of Brazil and the pomp of 1950s Paris. It contained lists of things she had to ship overseas, family Christmas presents, the eggs their chickens laid during the war, and a list of Elisabeth's beloved brother's belongings that she had to sort through after his suicide. Lulah was intrigued by what drove Elisabeth to keep all these lists, and she set out to reconstruct the fascinating life of this woman she never knew. As she began researching Elisabeth's life she was told that her own mother had been diagnosed with incurable lung cancer. Her search for Elisabeth became a way to rebuild her grandmother at the same time she was losing her mother. Her book is about mothers and daughters, love and loss, home and rootlessness. And above all it is about the ties that bind us, even beyond death.
When we come together we are happier, and we place great value on the community around us, including our treasured customers of LinenMe. We want our products to help you tell your own family's story through our linen. Whether that's a first grown-up bedlinen set for your teenager who is leaving home, or the linen tablecloth that will be the backdrop for countless meals and gatherings, or the blankets you snuggle under with your loved ones for film night. This is a celebration of mothers, daughters, sons and families everywhere, however flawed and complicated.
COMPETITION UPDATE! WINNERS ANNOUNCED:
Thanks so much to all of you who left such moving, interesting and poignant comments with memories of your mothers. What an amazing bunch of women, who all deserve to be celebrated today, and every day.
We have selected five lucky winners who will each receive a beautiful copy of Elisabeth's Lists in the post. All the comments were so lovely that we have selected randomly because it was just too hard to choose. Some winners also came from our Facebook page.
So, here they are!
Sophia Tennant Hosein
Farah Elmer
Adrian Bold
Stella Noble
Susie Groom
We will be in touch with these five winners for delivery details. If you would like your copy signed by the author be sure to let us know. And if you weren't one of the fortunate winners, you can buy the book here, here and in all major bookstores.
Wishing you all a very happy Mother's Day, however you are spending it.
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My memory is my mum (who has always been the most 'vanilla' person) , being introduced to dance music in the 90's when i was a teenager i.e. me playing loud music in my bedroom. I actually found my mum dancing (wiggling her hips and everything) in my room one day with a gigantic smile on her face. She denies it to this day but boy could she dance :) She still wiggles slightly when i put music on to this day :)
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I can relate to this as my mum was diagnosed with cancer a year ago. We've always been close but it made us even closer and I quit my job to look after her. Thankfully she finished her treatment and is doing really well. My wish for her is that her cancer stays at bay and she has a long, healthy life in front of her.
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I have this memory of my Mum teaching me to ride my bike...giving me lots of tips, encouraging me, making me get back on when I fell off and then being so thrilled and proud when I finally did it. It was only later I realised she had never been on a bike in her life and is the only person I know who can even fall off an exercise bike!
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One of my special memories is of my mum rushing to pick me up after school on a day when the weather had suddenly turned really bad. She wasnt often able to pick me up as she would be working in the afternoon but she had rushed back to pick up my coat and bring it for me as I had left it at home that day. She was soaked to the skin and her actions made me realise how much I should appreciate her.
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That should be a wonderful book, spanning generations of love and feelings. I would be really curious to read it.
During the 50s, my mum was traveling from Italy to Swisserland for working as a dressmaker.
She came back to Italy to grow me up in a small valley between the Dolomites. When I was really joung, she was used to dress me as a doll: with ribbons, little flowers and many tassels everywhere. Satisfied and coincided, I used to smile and run through the mountain flowers of the wonderful Dolomites.
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My mother came to England alone at 16 to escape Hitler's regime. Luckily my grandmother followed on a year later. She married young and I was born 9 months later and I have still never seen such a happy couple. Sadly my wonderful father died at only 49 and I then also discovered that my mother had been diagnosed with MS. After I married she came to live with us for the last years of her life and got to know her two granddaughters. Her bravery is an unforgettable memory.
My daughter Angeline is an inveterate list maker (as am I) and I think we would both love to read this book and then maybe recommend it to her sister Abigail who now lives in America.
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This sounds a really fascinating book!
A few years ago my Dad uncovered some diaries my mum had kept - none of had any idea she'd made them. They cover the end of WWII in 1945 until 1951 when she was a teenager. We've laughed and cried over them, and have had an insight into what life was like growing up in the 1940's and rationing.
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My mum is not just my mum but my best friend. She is so kind and loving. She always gives others her all and puts herself out for everyone else and never complians. My dad passed away suddenly when i was 12 and my mum managed to carry on and got us both through the hard time. All the local children call her Nanny:) she struggled to concìeve with me and after 10 years trying finally had a child, me:) my graduation was a really proud day for both of us. Nearly as proud as the day she became a nanny :) she taught me everything i know including how to be a parent myself. Shes litrally my rock, my bestfriend and my world:) I love her beyond words <3
2018-03-05
This came to my inbox in time that couldn't be more right.
I would like to win this book for my friend, who is an incredible women that writes non-ending list in her notebooks. Even in our digital age she does it on paper all the time, everywhere. She even wakes up at night at makes a list of things she might need to remember to do the next day!
She has just lost her husband last week to the lung cancer (it happened so fast, in just 5 months, he was so young, just turned 50) and is left with 2 young kids in the new country. She has been writing lists about funeral arrangements, kids organising, house arrangements for last week. It keeps her mind as clear as it can in the situation that she has found herself. This book, in my opinion, would be a perfect companion for her in this horrid time!
Thank you very much
Best wishes to everyone.
Tanya
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Linenme has popped into my inbox regularly. At special times I have ordered beautiful pieces that have made family and friends feel good and cared for as they received them. Pillowcases when we left London for Wiltshire. Duvet covers when we moved to Norway. Now to Vancouver it’s time for a gift for my mother Elizabeth- who lives in France. She continues to support me into her 70’s and we shall meet up in Wiltshire this month to find furniture and linen for the new house. I will add this book to my list x
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My mother lives so far away - literally on the other side of the world from me. I just managed to visit her for the first time in 3 years to celebrate her 85the birthday. She is the most special person in the world to me. I would be honored and thrilled to be able to send this book to her - or better even, take it in person. One special thing my mother gave me is a beautiful white damask tablecloth that belonged to her mother.
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I would love to read this book which appeals to me partly because I am an avid list maker and am often extolling the virtues of this occupation which I find focuses the mind, but also because it reminds me of my lovely Grandmother who was absent minded and would have benefitted from making lists and my dear much missed Mother who herself never missed an opportunity to tell me how lucky she felt to have a daughter.
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I love the comments about how she taveled a lot when she was a child, I know how that is, my father was a military man and we moved a lot when I was a child too, until we were able to settle down when I was 14, because my father got ill, but survuived his illness.
My mother too made lists to keep everything tidy and I have inherit the art of list making from her.
I still miss my Mum - even though I'm 66!