Borrowing a favourite book

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

I used to buy every novel I enjoyed, as though liking a book created an obligation to provide it with permanent accommodation. Then I moved into a smaller flat. Boxes of unread and half-remembered purchases blocked the hallway, while the book I actually wanted was waiting on a library shelf ten minutes away. Borrowing it felt, at first, like accepting a temporary version of pleasure.

The return date changed how I read. I made time instead of allowing the book to become a promise on a shelf. When I finished, I returned it and imagined somebody else beginning the first page. I still buy books I expect to revisit, and I dislike waiting when every library copy is out. But ownership is no longer my only proof of affection. A story can matter without becoming another object I must dust, move and defend against a leaking ceiling. Sometimes giving it back is part of keeping reading possible.

Source B: an original letter in a nineteenth-century voice. This is a period-voice simulation, not an archival document.

Dear Edward, you ask why I continue to purchase books when a circulating library serves our town. I use that library willingly, but there are volumes whose company I prefer not to hold by appointment. A book returned at the end of a fortnight may leave its argument unfinished in one's mind. I want the liberty to open it again when some later experience has made an old sentence newly difficult.

This does not mean that a crowded shelf proves a cultivated understanding. I have seen handsome bindings stand like respectable witnesses to reading that never occurred. My own means require selection, and I have purchased books that did not repay the expense. Nevertheless, a few chosen volumes become familiar working companions. I mark a passage, return years later and discover how my agreement has changed. Borrowing extends my acquaintance; possession allows certain acquaintances to deepen. I would not abandon either practice, but I resist the suggestion that keeping a book is merely collecting paper.

Refer to the whole of both sources. Compare the writers’ perspectives on borrowing and owning books and how they convey those perspectives. Support your comparison with evidence from both sources.