Barnes & Noble, Inc. announced Monday that pre-orders for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince have topped 750,000 copies, well ahead of the pace of the last Potter book, which came out two years ago.” In an Associated Press wire story, B&N CEO Steve Riggio says, “The Harry Potter series has shattered all records in publishing history, and the enormous amount of pre-orders to date confirm that the latest Harry Potter title will be the most popular yet. In fact, we predict that our pre-orders will top one million.”