I've searched for an answer to this particular question, and though I may very well have missed something, I didn't find anything that directly addressed this particular issue: I requested a mass market paperback and received it relatively quickly.  The pages are all in okay condition, but the covers are not attached.  To put it more specifically, the front cover, spine, and back cover are all in one solid piece, but they were only wrapped around the book, not attached to it.  The remnants of adhesive on the book's spine aren't sticky at all, so this is something that happened to the book long ago, not during shipping or anything like that.  

I've never had something like this happen before - I've gotten books that have had severely damaged covers, but not one where the covers and spine weren't attached to the actual pages.  

I suppose that I could get some book repair adhesive from the library where I work, but I can't be sure that it would hold completely, so reposting this one looks like it wouldn't necessarily be workable.  

Due to that latter issue, I'm leaning toward marking this one RWAP, but I wanted to double-check first.  Has this happened to anyone before?  Does anyone have any advice re: what to do about this?  

Thanks in advance for any help anyone's able to provide. 

Donnelle

It is up to your judgement if you think this was prior to sending or during transit.

Ah, that makes sense.  Given the complete and utter lack of stickiness, I can't see how damage that significant could have occurred in addition to the remaining adhesive completely drying out in just the couple of days that the book was in the mail. 

Thank you very much for the reply and the help!

I had a softcover cookbook do this.  Purchased used from an Amazon vender, it appeared like new upon arrival, but in short order the bound inside pages detached from the cover.  In my case, there was sticky adhesive (new or added later?) that would temporarily hold the book together for awhile until it detached again.  A good book, I passed it on as unpostable.

Yep, I've seen this happen in my house too.   I really think it's the cheap glue they are using on PBs now.