title: Is there an analog of numpy.save for lists?
body: <p>Is there a function like numpy.save but such that it saves a list (not an array) to a binary file?</p>
  
  <p>Let's say I want to save a heterogeneous list that contains numbers and characters</p>
  
  <pre><code>a = [1,2,3,4,'a']
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>If I save it with numpy.save, and then load it</p>
  
  <pre><code>np.save('a.npy',a)
  b = np.load('a.npy').tolist()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>then I get a list of characters only:</p>
  
  <pre><code>print(type(b),b)
  
  &lt;class 'list'&gt; ['1', '2', '3', '4', 'a']
  </code></pre>