The holiday shopping season is officially in full swing, so the literary reading cup runneth over and ruineth your coffee table with big names. Message from Big Literature: Books make great gifts! Message from DCist: Free readings help keep your entertainment budget low, which is helpful since you already have to spend your entire bonus on gifts for other people. MONDAY: Joan Collins is 73 years-old and still fabulous. We’re not sure how she does…

MONDAY Prolific. Canadian. Rhymes with “cat would.” There’s only one author in the world those three adjectives can be applied to. Margaret Atwood reads from her new short story collection, Moral Disorder: and Other Stories at Borders Books & Music, 1801 K St. NW., at 7 p.m. TUESDAY Hmmm. It’s election day and John Nichols is in town, discussing and signing his book, The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism. What are you…

TUESDAY Tired of running into the virtual junta of returned Peace Corps volunteers living in our fair city and being forced to listen to story upon story about how working in an office every day will just never be as fulfilling as digging that well in Cameroon? Then this event is not for you. Former Peace Corps volunteers read from and sign A Life Inspired: Tales of Peace Corps Service. Peace Corps, 111 20th…