Jon Ronson announced his retirement from his weekly newspaper column at the Edinburgh Book Festival today.

He cited the “massive amount of hate-mail” he receives and a “constant pressure to create interesting situations in life” as the main reasons for giving up his weekly column in The Guardian which centres around his family life.

Ronson declared the end of his long running show at the start of an interview with Australian television presenter Romana Pavel in front of a live audience at the Edinburgh Book Festival.

In the hour-long interview Ronson explained the vicious hate mail from people he described as “cultish” (due to his previous work on conspiracy theories”) and didn’t like his “neurotic persona”. One person sent him an email which said: “I served you at a restaurant last month and pissed in your salad.”

The sell-out audience showed visible dismay at Ronson’s announcement. He has written his final four columns which will be published over the next month.

Jon Ronson’s new book What I Do: True Tales of Everyday Craziness is out on November 2nd from Picador books.