the outset as her intent: 'to reclaim for women the right to appreciate the short-lived beauty of boys'". Miranda Carter, reviewing the book for The Daily Telegraph, described it as a "handsomely produced, leisurely coffee-table trawl through the art canon, tracing images of boys in art from childhood through adolescence to young manhood, starting with Grecian kouroi and Greek myths and ending up with pop stars." In a review for The Sunday Times, James Hall says that, "At first flick, The Boy resembles a ravishing picture-book for the smart coffee table. But the text and some of the images are pretty incendiary. Alongside famous Old Master depictions of luscious boys (mythological, biblical and secular), we find recent "art" photographs that have been accused of pandering to paedophiles." The Age called the book "an insightful survey of male beauty through the ages and a powerful and radical polemic ... It is occasionally undermined by erroneous statements ... and self-indulgent whimsy that you will find — depending on whether you love or hate the author — either endearingly idiosyncratic or utterly outrageous." In Peter Conrad's review of The Beautiful Boy for The Observer, he said that "Greer's ogling defiantly disproves the orthodox feminist notion that 'the act of viewing is masculine'". Robert Douglas-Fairhurst said of the book in The Art Newspaper, "[Although] she is better at picking fights than constructing arguments, none of Dr Greer's occasional lapses stifles the frisky playfulness of her book as whole... Dr Greer has managed to produce a book that is itself distinctly boyish... Dr Greer's title seems to offer more than a description of her main subject. It also characterises the polymorphous appeal of her way of looking at it." A writer for Publishers Weekly said of the book, "Short on argument but long on lush reproductions of languid young men, the collection is better viewed than read." In The New Zealand Herald, Alison Jones wrote that, "Greer's affectionate enjoyment of boys will resonate with that of countless mothers (and fathers) who adore their sons' litheness and mourn its passing. It may be prosaic to confess this, but as a mother of teenage sons, I found this book a genuine balm." For Prospect, Sebastian Smee wrote that, "Many people's first instinct may be that she is exploiting the dubious sanctuary of art to validate dangerous desires. But in the current climate, in which we have all