If you are okay with a generator instead of a list, then you can flip the square brackets to parentheses and then you do not need to hold the whole thing in memory at once.
EDIT: You can add a filter in a similar way:
suffix_str_list = [x for x in str_list if x.startswith("meep")]
Read that out loud and tell me that doesn't grate on your ears? That's my basic test if code for the book would be understood by the reader. What you have here, this "symbol soup" is what makes programming hard for people in the beginning.
Some of the simpler list comprehensions (like the student one two parents up) are fairly "symbol soup" free, though - and a very clean way of expressing what you want.
OTOH, I can see how they could still be a hard concept for a beginner who hasn't done any functional programming before, particularly because they don't read front-to-back like most imperative statements.
EDIT: You can always split complex ones up as well, for most common usages:
meeps = [ s for s in str_list if s[:4] == 'meep' ]
suffix_str_lst = ['{0}_suffix'.format(m) for m in meeps ]
This one was probably a bit simple to really need that, but it's a bit easier to read. :).
I actually find it really elegant. I fell in love with comprehensions as soon as I discovered them. They were the terse, expressive syntax I'd long been searching for.
Is there a tutorial on learning simple one liners like this? I find myself frustrated after seeing simple and obvious solutions like the above, but can never bring myself to code them as such.
I'm only half kidding. The best way to get used to using functional concepts is to actually use them in their native setting, and then apply (giggle) them elsewhere. When you _have_ to solve problems this way, at some point, it clicks.
EDIT: You can add a filter in a similar way: