Nine First Lines

I've done this before, I'm doing it again. I've got a stack of books and am wondering which one to pick. Which book would you choose to read based on the following first lines?

1. "The prisoner stood with his hands tied in front of him, tired, beaten, and filthy, but with a proud back befitting his royal heritage."

2. "A high-nosed cedar canoe, nimble as a seabird, atop a tumbling white ridge of ocean."

3. "There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills."

4. "At the end of the century before last, in the market square of the city of Baltese, there stood a boy with a hat on his head and a coin in his hand."

5. "It was an October morning in the year 1872, and New York City's air was so befogged with white mist and dark smoke that I could barely see across the street."

6. "On a hairpin turn, above the dead forest, on no day in particular, a white Toyota crashed into a black Mercedes, for a moment blending into a blur of gray."

7. "If you started to squeeze your brakes right in the middle of heading down Maple Hill, just as you were passing old Mr. Normore's mailbox, you could coast into the bike rack in front of Lippy's Market without making a single tire squeak."

8. "Cities are never random."

9. "Han Alister squatted next to the steaming mud spring, praying that the thermal crust would hold his weight."

I know which book I should read first and which book I want to read first, but I will probably choose neither of those to be my next book.

Which would you choose?