If you could only "read" one, single book on kabbalah, this is it. The 2nd edition is a revelation, not just in comparison to the first edition, but as it represents the David Chaim Smith's revision based on years of additional contemplation and working with those of us practicing the 32 Keys. The fine edition here is spectacular, soft to touch leather and stunning quality of paper to present Smith's remarkable maps, or "esoteric cartography"; don't call these drawings art. They aren't. But in detail and meaning surpass the textual ambiguity of Art by virtue of the Thing to which they lead.
David Chaim Smith's 32 Keys is the best practice of kabbalah I have come across since first studying with a Hasidic Rabbi in Vienna, 1997. The decades of learning since are dwarfed by the revelation that is Smith's sensitive combination of features of the Western Esoteric Traditions. Neither eschewing magical traditions or even ideas of Hermetic kabbalah or alchemical theory, Smith's tradition of kabbalah hails out of the Iyyun school and the famous Fountain Of Wisdom text, yet is heretical as he admits, but in the best kind of way.
What this 32 keys is in my opinion is the perfect system of kabbalistic practice for magical practitioners of almost any tradition and is intented to fit everyone from pagan, to Christian to Hebrew. Only David Chaim Smith could make such a mountain climbable. Moreover, the author does so with the power of his maps and a delightful writing style that once you acclimatize to it becomes a new language for scaling the terrains his maps suggest.
I cannot recommend this book enough. Knowledge of The Tree of Life is not necessary even, as that glyph plays little to no role in this school of kabbalah. However, Smith's course on the trees is also outstanding.