The ObserverSportSex, drugs and rolling surfB Bunker Spreckels lived fast - and died young. Born into a $50m fortune, he left his family to surf in Hawaii. There, the playboy prince revolutionised the sport before, 30 years ago, his excesses caught up with him, at the age of just 27. In his previously unpublished last interview, he talks to CR Stecyk III about groupies, surfing on acid and meeting SatanBorn in 1949, Adolph B Spreckels III - great grandson of a Germany-born sugar baron, railway tycoon and publisher, Claus Spreckels - grew up in the lap of luxury.

The 100 best novelsFictionElizabeth Bowen’s 1948 novel perfectly captures the atmosphere of London during the blitz while providing brilliant insights into the human heart Elizabeth Bowen: ‘a unique sensitivity to the lives of ordinary English men and women in extremis’. Photograph: Jane Bown/ObserverLondon in the blitz influenced the creative lives of many important English writers, from Graham Greene to Rose Macaulay. But none captured wartime London as memorably as Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973), an Anglo-Irish writer who first attracted critical attention with a collection of short-stories in 1923.

History booksObituaryWalter Laqueur obituaryDistinguished historian, journalist and scholar who focused on terrorism, the Holocaust and the decline of EuropeThe contemporary historian and journalist Walter Laqueur, who has died aged 97, made the great issues of the past century accessible to a wide readership in the almost 100 book titles that bear his name as author or editor. His own experience of political upheaval started with fleeing Nazi Germany as a teenager, and his work helped create the academic study of communism, nazism, fascism and terrorism, continuing to the present day with The Future of Terrorism (with Christopher Wall, 2018).

The Lay ScientistScienceArtificial Intelligence: Gods, egos and Ex MachinaEven with its flaws, last year’s Ex Machina perfectly captured the curious relationship between artificial intelligence, God and ego. A tiny change in its closing moments would have given it an intriguing new dimension. It’s taken me a year and a several viewings to collect my thoughts about Ex Machina. Superficially it looks like a film about the future of artificial intelligence, but like most science fiction, it tells us more about the present than the future; and like most discussion around AI, it ends up reflecting not technological progress so much as human egos.

Shishaldin volcano, one of the most active in the Aleutian arc, saw increased lava eruptions just after midnight Tuesday. Photograph: APShishaldin volcano, one of the most active in the Aleutian arc, saw increased lava eruptions just after midnight Tuesday. Photograph: APAlaska This article is more than 6 months oldErupting Alaska volcano spews large ash cloud, prompting warnings to pilotsThis article is more than 6 months oldAsh cloud from Shishaldin volcano, which began erupting 11 July, is angular and sharp and can cause jet engine to shut down