Harry Potter [Images] is back with a bang!

With 130,000 pre-sold copies, the book is set to beat all bestsellers.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince has already surpassed the other Indian bestsellers like Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things and Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy, Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, all of which sold about 100,000-120,000.

The sixth offering from J K Rowling [Images] is said to be  the darkest and most unsettling till now. In this new book, Harry Potter is all of 16 and is increasinlgy growing lonely- due to his reputation as the the "Chosen One".

In India, several shops opened very early in the morning to allow die-hard fans to get their copies.

(Kartik, a first year junior college student, has his copy of Harry Potter the Half-Blood Prince and is going through the first pages just after 9am on Saturday morning)

Photograph: Jewella C Miranda