I bought a book which is paperback and very large: 697 A4 pages. It appears to be what is called perfect bound, that is, where the spine is adhered directly to the back of the pages. At a minimum, I am going to put a hard cover onto it to protect the corners which I know will otherwise are inevitably going to be damaged in the normal course of use. I am not anticipating excessively heavy use, but I'm definitely going to use the book and at 700 pages there's a lot to use.

In addition to the cover, I am worried about the binding. I am wondering:

1. If I do a good job putting hard covers on it, but leave the current binding intact, how much should I be worried that it will break down, considering the size and weight of the book, and the nature of perfect binding? Is there anything I can inspect to get a sense of how good the binding is?
2. If the binding is glued, is it even possible to sow it instead? Would there even be signatures? Or is there some other way to solidify it?

That looks like a lot of different questions, but they are just different angles on this question: If I want this large book to last, should I rework the binding in addition to the cover?

I bought a book which is paperback and very large: 697 A4 pages. It appears to be what is called perfect bound, that is, where the spine is adhered directly to the back of the pages. At a minimum, I am going to put a hard cover onto it to protect the corners which I know will otherwise inevitably be damaged in the normal course of use. I am not anticipating excessively heavy use, but I'm definitely going to use the book and at 700 pages there's a lot to use.

In addition to the cover, I am worried about the binding. I am wondering:

1. If I do a good job putting hard covers on it, but leave the current binding intact, how much should I be worried that it will break down, considering the size and weight of the book, and the nature of perfect binding? Is there anything I can inspect to get a sense of how good the binding is?
2. If the binding is glued, is it even possible to sew it instead? Would there even be signatures? Or is there some other way to solidify it?

That looks like a lot of different questions, but they are just different angles on this question: If I want this large book to last, should I rework the binding in addition to the cover?