Demeter's law (suggestion) and tell don't ask - Part 1

There are several very good explanations of this guideline for writing object oriented code. This is a supplementary post. One of the Demeter guidelines is that you can invoke a method on a parameter but not on the object that is thereby returned. For instance, the following snippet violates the guideline:

//checkout a book from a library
checkout(long bookId, long userId){
  Book bookAskedFor = repository.findBookById(bookId); //repository has been injected
  User borrower = repository.findUserById(userId);
  bookAskedFor.setStatus(Book.CHECKED_OUT);
  bookAskedFor.setLentTo(borrower.getUserId());  
  bookAskedFor.setExpectedBackBy(today().add(LendingPolicy.standardDuration()));  
  bookAskedFor.setNumberOfCopiesAvailable(bookAskedFor.getNumberOfCopiesAvailable() - 1);
}

By invoking methods on bookAskedFor, Demeter's law is violated. It is also a flagrant violation of encapsulation that may be addressed as below:

checkout(long bookId, long userId){
  Book bookAskedFor = repository.findBookById(bookId);
  User borrower = repository.findUserById(userId);  
  bookAskedFor.lendTo(borrrower); //tell-don't-ask in action
}

This reads much better. lendTo nicely encapsulates the business logic of lending out a book. However it still doesn't satisfy Demeter's law because it invokes a method on a second hand object (bookAskedFor). I find this overkill. A trivial change (offering no further improvements) seems to satisfy the law:

checkout(long bookId, long userId){
  Book bookAskedFor = repository.findBookById(bookId);
  User borrower = repository.findUserById(userId);
  lend(bookAskedFor, borrower);
}

lend(Book book, User borrower){
  book.lendTo(borrower);
}

What is worse, one could satisfy Demeter without bothering to encapsulate:

checkout(long bookId, long userId){
  Book bookAskedFor = repository.findBookById(bookId);
  User borrower = repository.findUserById(userId);  
  changeStatustoCheckedOut(bookAskedFor);
  setBorrowerId(bookAskedFor, borrower);
  setReturnDate(bookAskedFor);
  adjustNumberofAvailableCopies(bookAskedFor);
}

changeStatustoCheckedOut(Book book){
  book.setStatus(Book.CHECKED_OUT);
}

setBorrowerId(Book book, User borrower){
  book.setLentTo(borrower.getUserId());
}

setReturnDate(Book book){  
  book.setExpectedBackBy(today().add(LendingPolicy.standardDuration()));
}

adjustNumberofAvailableCopies(Book book){  
  book.setNumberOfCopiesAvailable(book.getNumberOfCopiesAvailable() - 1);
}

Such examples lead me to think that 'Tell don't ask' is a better principle to keep in mind than the Law of Demeter.