title: Extract part of 2D-List/Matrix/List of lists in Python
body: <p>I want to extract a part of a two-dimensional list (=list of lists) in Python. I use Mathematica a lot, and there it is very convenient to write</p>
  
  <pre><code>matrix[[2;;4,10;;13]] 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which would extract the part of the matrix which is between the 2nd and 4th row as well as the 10th and 13th column.</p>
  
  <p>In Python, I just used</p>
  
  <pre><code>[x[firstcolumn:lastcolumn+1] for x in matrix[firstrow:lastrow+1]]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is there also a more elegant or efficient way to do this?</p>