Get our Best Book Club Books of 2025 eBook!

Summary and Reviews of A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli

A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli

A Meal in Winter

A Novel of World War II

by Hubert Mingarelli
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (6):
  • First Published:
  • Jul 5, 2016, 144 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Oct 2018, 144 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

A miniature masterpiece, this is the spare, stunning story of three soldiers who share a meal with their Jewish prisoner and face a chilling choice.

One morning in the dead of winter, during the darkest years of World War II, three German soldiers head out into the frozen Polish countryside. They have been charged by their commanders with tracking down and bringing back for execution "one of them" - Jew. Having flushed out a young man hiding in the woods, they decide to rest in an abandoned house before continuing their journey back to the camp. As they prepare food, they are joined by a passing Pole whose virulent anti-Semitism adds tension to an already charged atmosphere. Before long, the group's sympathies begin to splinter when each man is forced to confront his own conscience as the moral implications of their murderous mission become clear.

Called 'masterly and necessary" by the Times Literary Supplement, A Meal in Winter recalls the claustrophobia of Roman Polanski's The Pianist and Louis Begley's Wartime Lies. A sleeper hit in the United Kingdom, this is the first novel by the award-winning French novelist Hubert Mingarelli to be translated into English.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

Though brief, this is neither a fast, nor easy read. Mingarelli touches on so many inconsistencies within the human psyche, and so much cognitive dissonance. He explores how very treacherous the world is due to longstanding, yet misguided, ideals of masculinity and authority. The story inspires questions as to whether these ideals are outmoded and at odds with a civilized, modern society. The truths Mingarelli writes about are still too relevant for comfort. Read this at risk of Emmerich, Bauer and their unnamed friend haunting you for days, maybe weeks. But read this...continued

Full Review (664 words)

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today.

(Reviewed by Donna Chavez).

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



Stanley Milgram's Experiment

Hubert Mingarelli's characters in A Meal in Winter have to dehumanize an entire race of people in order to justify carrying out Hitler's mass genocide during World War II. The narrator of the story even goes so far as to resent the Jews because of the very details that remind him of their humanity – "a piece of embroidery, coloured buttons, a ribbon in the hair." He can't tolerate viewing them as human beings. That and the men's unimaginable nightmares about their horrific tasks notwithstanding, the three Nazi soldiers proceed to carry out their commandant's orders as best they know how.

Stanley MilgramIn the early 1960s, Yale University social psychologist Stanley Milgram, himself the son of Jews that escaped the ...

This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked A Meal in Winter, try these:

  • The Postcard jacket

    The Postcard

    by Anne Berest

    Published 2024

    About this book

    Anne Berest's The Postcard is among the most acclaimed and beloved French novels of recent years. Luminous and gripping to the very last page, it is an enthralling investigation into family secrets, a poignant tale of mothers and daughters, and a vivid portrait of twentieth-century Parisian intellectual and artistic life.

  • The Zone of Interest jacket

    The Zone of Interest

    by Martin Amis

    Published 2015

    About this book

    More by this author

    Powered by both wit and compassion, and in characteristically vivid prose, Martin Amis's unforgettable new novel excavates the depths and contradictions of the human soul.

We have 4 read-alikes for A Meal in Winter, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    Lessons in Chemistry
    by Bonnie Garmus
    Praised by Parade and The New York Times Book Review, this debut features a 1960s scientist turned TV cooking star.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Serial Killer Games
    by Kate Posey

    A morbidly funny and emotionally resonant novel about the ways life—and love—can sneak up on us (no matter how much pepper spray we carry).

  • Book Jacket

    Ginseng Roots
    by Craig Thompson

    A new graphic memoir from the author of Blankets and Habibi about class, childhood labor, and Wisconsin’s ginseng industry.

  • Book Jacket

    The Seven O'Clock Club
    by Amelia Ireland

    Four strangers join an experimental treatment to heal broken hearts in Amelia Ireland's heartfelt debut novel.

  • Book Jacket

    Happy Land
    by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

    From the New York Times bestselling author, a novel about a family's secret ties to a vanished American Kingdom.

  • Book Jacket

    One Death at a Time
    by Abbi Waxman

    A cranky ex-actress and her Gen Z sobriety sponsor team up to solve a murder that could send her back to prison in this dazzling mystery.

  • Book Jacket

    The Fairbanks Four
    by Brian Patrick O’Donoghue

    One murder, four guilty convictions, and a community determined to find justice.

Who Said...

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

A C on H S

and be entered to win..