Andrew’s a friend of mine, so excuse my bias: I’ll miss his blogging, a lot. No one did it better. And you have to assume that, without him, the site dies. But I’ll welcome another book. And the last time I saw him, we had dinner maybe nine months ago, I could see that the toll of constantly having to blog was really having an impact on him—his ability to think deeply, to react to events and ideas without first having to think about blogging them, the chance to use that muscle of writing and thinking in a longer format than the blog. (That’s why I could never blog full-time; talk about feeling like you’re on a treadmill.)

As usual, he’s eloquent.

…I am saturated in digital life and I want to return to the actual world again. I’m a human being before I am a writer; and a writer before I am a blogger, and although it’s been a joy and a privilege to have helped pioneer a genuinely new form of writing, I yearn for other, older forms. I want to read again, slowly, carefully. I want to absorb a difficult book and walk around in my own thoughts with it for a while. I want to have an idea and let it slowly take shape, rather than be instantly blogged. I want to write long essays that can answer more deeply and subtly the many questions that the Dish years have presented to me. I want to write a book.

Thanks, Andrew, and congratulations. That was a pretty great run.