I want to know if that's low, average or high. I get the feeling it's probably the lower end of average
My initial gut feeling was that 2.3 is low, not lower end of average (assuming we are talking British people, and a mean average rather than median [I think this is crucial because there will be some people with thousands of books biasing a mean average upwards]). However, after giving it some thought I suppose one needs to consider that there are a lot of old people who probably don't own over 100 books, poor people who don't own that many books, people who dispose of books rather than retaining them all, young people perhaps favouring alternatives etc. There are a few issues to consider:
-Should we include shared books in our ownership ratio?
-Do e-books count?
-Would it be better to measure total books one has owned, i.e. to include those previously owned and then disposed of (sold, gifted etc)?
-I get the concept but I'm not sure a linear average is necessarily the best measure
To answer your question about my average, I'm not sure but I'd say about 3. For my father... somewhere between 6-10, at a guess. My sister was something similar.
As for whether ownership of books matters (versus simply having read them), I think it is still a valid question to ask - the OP makes no assertions in terms of the implications of owning books. So it isn't intended as a measure of how well-read a person is, simply how many books they own relative to their age which could imply various factors such as books deemed good enough to want to retain/re-read etc.
Interestingly it is only this year that I've actually started getting rid of books as we have too many in the house. I decided I'd just donate them to the library unless they were one of my preferred authors or otherwise notable.
)
although I only read 2 a year. usually pretty big books though!